Cruis’n Blast review: ’90s arcade racing, supercharged for the modern era

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  Flipping past a T-Rex in a shiny, blue sports car: that’s the Cruis’n Blast lifestyle at work. [credit: Raw Thrills / Nintendo ]

Cruis’n Blast ‘s placement on my list of favorite video games of 2021 should not be taken as a universal recommendation. As a painstakingly authentic refresh of the dated Cruis’n arcade-racing series, it’s the simple game, and in many ways, it lags behind other arcade racers that have come and gone in the past few years.

Still, if you’re looking for sheer, unadulterated, all-ages racing fun, especially on the underpowered Nintendo Switch, you should set your GPS coordinates to the bonkers racetracks plus Burnout -leaning smashy-smash of Cruis’n Blast as soon as possible.

Cruis’n through history: A primer

Cruis’n emerged within the ’90s as one associated with the only major Western race series in arcades, years after Sega and Namco unleashed their own dazzling 3D racers. This Midway series didn’t really compete with the likes of Daytona USA or Ridge Racer , as it was marked by wimpy tech and simple mechanics. Instead, 1994’s Cruis’n UNITED STATES kept things loud and silly in a shameless, drive-straight-ahead manner. The result was, depending on where you lived, a new pizza parlor mainstay—and one that rode Nintendo’s coattails, since it has been emblazoned with “Nintendo Ultra 64” logos before that console launched with a different name.