The Good Sort of Punishment in Fast Fusion

It’s refreshing to play a vehicle-driven (driving?) game that’s not all about negative looping of the modern kart racer. Sure, everybody loves an upset of getting from the last place to the first within seconds, and there are obvious concessions to make when games are intended for quick pick up and play. But sometimes I want the Formula 1 experience of every little mistake accumulating, and the competition occasionally outperforming me even when I don’t make mistakes, simply because I wasn’t brave enough to attempt a single shortcut.

The Fast serious has become Nintendo’s Ridge Racer at this point, more of a launch-day lucky charm rather than an important game in its own. But it’s important, and not simply because there’s barely anything like it, with F-Zero occasionally celebrated but never committed to, and Wipeout, well, wiped out. It’s a tech-pushing marvel produced under extreme constraints of developing for unfamiliar hardware in just a few months by a very small and modest veteran team. And it knows exactly what it’s doing under all the restrictions.

Fast Fusion only flows well once I put time into tracks, learning when to risk and when it’s not worth it, when to save up boosts and when to burn the whole gauge. I might never meaningfully come back to it because console launches never aid attention spans, and I feel like at times it’s too unforgiving about certain bumps or even rage-inducing when I crash just before the finish line. But who am I to complain when I asked for Formula 1, and this is more or less what I’m getting? It’s not really a game about play, after all, it’s about performance.