Coffin Dodgers Review

There was a time in the 90s when kart racing games with unusual characters like plumbers and bandicoots was a very popular pastime. Just as important as finishing first was taking out your rivals using various weapons and items. That concept may have been believed to be retired (don’t tell Mario that, he’ll never give up that kart) but Coffin Dodgers looks like its aiming to prove that the idea is not quite dead yet.

In Coffin Dodgers, a group of retirement village residents refuse to give up the ghost and instead challenge the Grim Reaper himself to a series of races around the town using their mobility scooters. Winning will allow them to keep living but lose and he keeps their souls as a reward. It’s a preposterous idea as any for a racing game and that’s part of its charm. Amongst the characters playable include a former fighter pilot, biker gang member, supermodel and an Amish farmer who has a secret love of technology, so basically he is terrible at being Amish. Each playable racer looks admiringly quirky and has a thought out but barely told back story but unfortunately, there isn’t any unique quality to try and give them an edge in the competition and really effect the gameplay. A missed opportunity.

In Story Mode, there are three races to an area (Town, Farm and Graveyard before a final showdown). At the end of each three, the lowest ranked bites the dust. The AI controlled ones still partake in future races but are zombified. Experience points can be gained during races by taking out other racers using items or your melee weapon and even hitting cones on the edge of the track, which is usually something you would avoid to succeed. The XP total is converted into coins after each race that you can then spend on upgrades for your scooter, increasing its overall speed, acceleration and how many weapons you can carry at one time. Those upgrades quickly become much needed because as each race passes, the difficulty increases. Its not the tracks that change up enough for you to adapt your tactics, your fellow racers just get quicker and without those upgrades, multiple attempts will be needed to even achieve a top three finish. It’s a difficulty spike rather than a curve that is actually enjoyably challenging at first but then becomes one of Coffin Dodgers’ biggest hindrances as it can become about gaining enough coins to upgrade before actually winning a race.

Turning a race on its head becomes a near impossible task and a close, head to head finish is an extremely rare occurrence. Instead, there is always a chance that whether you find a significant gap created by you leading or trailing behind, that distance will stay for the remainder of the race. It’s not just other racers that you have to watch out for as some tracks have their own environmental hazard. Police cars speed through the town, UFO’s fire lasers in the farm (naturally) and as the Grim Reaper seems to have already been busy, zombies are crawling around in several places.  That’s when the gameplay loop becomes tiresome and the flaws of the tracks’ design become a little more apparent. If lagging behind, there is no obvious way on how to use the track to cut down lap time and if racers ahead actually leave items for you to pick up, the ones you do are not guaranteed to allow a drastic

Coffin Dodgers is a creative idea that proves there is still room for some wacky racing amongst games but it doesn’t quite meet its potential. The tracks aren’t as creative as the characters speeding around on them and there’s no real replayable value unless you must have every upgrade available but that doesn’t take long at all.