Released a few months ago Mantis Burn Racing was a charming and very likeable racer which always had scope for extra content later down the line. Sure enough, the Snowbound and Elite DLCs have arrived, and while the Elite content carries a tiny £1.99 price tag the Snowbound content is totally free, so get strapped in and brace yourself for a bumpy, but exhilarating ride.
The Snowbound pack gives you exactly what it says on the tin: some snowy tracks for you to race on. Fans of sideways driving, flicking your car delicately round corners and doing high speeds with little or no grip will love this. The tracks look great as you leave tracks in the snow and whizz past iced up buildings, glowing with light from inside which turns into a barely-noticed blur as you focus all of your efforts on staying on the track. You’ll need to have all of your wits about you to make it through the new championships on offer, but you’ll also need to be pretty handy on standard tracks as well – the new snow content can only be raced (or at least the seasons part of it) if you’ve already worked your way through the main game. That’s not to say it’s unplayable if you haven’t; single races are still accessible using a range of different vehicles, but you won’t get the most out of it if you haven’t hit those higher echelons.
The Elite leagues appear to have a similar issue, with you having to scroll across to the new Elite section. This time though, you can jump straight in and enjoy the full set of races whether or not you’ve made the full progress previously. With the Elite Pass you’ll get a bunch of new vehicles, which doesn’t sound like it’s all that great, but they bad boys fly. Using a fancy futuristic system of powerful fans, these hovering vehicles let you zip round the tracks and epic speeds, with the slight inconvenience that there’s no friction to help you get round the corners. Imagine playing a standard racing game then switching to Wipeout – you’re getting near the difference here. They’re harder to control, but feel fantastic when throwing them round corners at high speed. It’s not too dissimilar to racing on snow in the Snowbound tracks, and a cynic might suggest that these packs have come about by the programmers just mucking about with the friction variables within the programming code, but that’d be ignoring the fact that they’re really good fun and some new fresher content is just what many people will need to get Mantis Burn Racing loaded up again.
So two new DLC packs, only one of them needs paying for and even then it’s only a couple of quid. If you’re itching for a bit more quick, close, drifty racing then look no further – this is some really great extra content.
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