Homie Rollerz. You know those little figurines that are highly offensive and are worth a quarter by the Wal-Mart exit? Well, Destineer thought it would be a great idea to bring these little bastards together in a terrible Mario Kart clone. Why? That is anyone’s guess.
Just like any other knock-off kart racer, Homie Rollerz is a low quality game designed to make a quick buck by mimicking the current hot trend. But after the first lap, any gamer can realize what an unplayable mess this title really is.
First, the play control is amazing bad. Normally, bad kart racers usually suffer from a floaty control scheme. But instead of being too floaty, Homie Rollerz actually goes in a different direct by being too tight. Even before the player is allowed to accelerate off the starting line, it is possible to simply just rotate in place, with the camera following at an awkward angle. With this terrible camera mechanic, you will encounter more blind turns than your 90 year old grandma. In fact, it almost feels like the player is controlling the environment as opposed to the kart racer itself. The weapons are pretty ridiculous as well. A brick wall will stop racers behind you, a basketball is the equivalent to Mario Kart’s green shell, and the “confuser juice” (no I am not making this up) will make it harder to steer…which is already a huge problem. Should I even mention the hot sauce weapon? Naw. You can figure that one out on your own.
This game is solely based around stereotypes. Gata is the town slut, Mac Daddy is the town pimp, Big Loco a tattooed ex-con who is now a youth counselor (because I want my children around an ex-con with a ton of tattoos), and El Chilote is a talking chili pepper (again, I am not making this up). Oh yeah, and the “wizard” is a homeless old man that can grant wishes. Couldn’t he wish himself into a little more wealth then? Or even better yet, why not wish himself out of this game? Or even better yet, why not wish that his existence on planet Earth never happened? Ok, I think you can see where I am going with this.
And you don’t gain experience points or cash; you gain respect. The more respect you obtain, the better things you can unlock to pimp out your ride. Things like rims and hydraulics are a couple of the main focus points.
Besides being a bit on the stereotypical side, Homie Rollerz’s gameplay is down right broken. No matter what you do, you will never get first place. Even if you tank out your ride with the best stuff, you still will not win. This is also a huge downfall because the only way to advance in the game, is to win each race as the come (beating level 1 unlocks level 2). It is not that this game has an impossible learning curve, it is just that the AI does not let you win. Period. I unfortunately suffered for about an hour before I could beat the first level.
The graphics even get in the way of the gameplay. I already mentioned the wonky camera system, but the rest of the game lacks any type of texture or detail, making it hard to differentiate between weapons and items. The racers themselves are also hard to understand. It is as if the developers couldn’t decide on whether or not to make them big headed characters like Super Bombad Racing or go a more realistic route. Instead, Homie Rollerz is caught somewhere in-between, making the player unsure on whether or not to take this game with a more comical approach or go a more serious route.
There is a single and multi cart multiplayer mode, but had no will to test it out because I am sure that the computer AI will still win even if you played with five other players. The only thing harder than actually winning a match is to try finding other players willing to play this game.
Homie Rollerz is a disaster. The shoddy AI, bad play controller, and stereotypical theme adds up to one bad package. This is unfortunate because I was looking forward to playing this title, following all the hype. If this cart came bundled in a bubble machine for a quarter, I would still question its value. Stay away from this one and go play Destineer’s Word Jong instead.