8.5 hours played
Written 27 days ago
It’s nice to see the generation of kids who grew up on Simpsons Hit and Run finally old enough to be making their own games. Everything from the colorful mini open world, to the way npcs roll around on the floor when you knock them over. Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is a fun way to kill a few hours, despite there being a few bumps along the road.
Terry starts his adventure by interviewing for a job for the sole purpose of obtaining a little yellow car that looks like a shoe. This is where you’re introduced to the games writing style which is irreverent and dry, to say the least. That really worked for me and had me chuckling throughout my play through, although admittedly it may not be for everyone. I recently played Thank Goodness you’re Here and I found TTTT to be quite a bit funnier overall. Terry’s responses during dialogue are often kurt and abrupt in the way a kid with undeveloped social skills might talk to the grown ups around him. Also, the timing of when text appears (and sometimes doesn’t appear) on screen is always perfect. Timing is something that games can often struggle with when trying to be funny and is why so many other comedic games fall flat for me. Luckily Tiny Terry excels in this regard.
The sense of humor also extends into the gameplay and world you’re then released into. It soon becomes clear that the main goal of the game is to drive up a building which for some reason has a road on the side, all the way into space. However to do so, you need enough boost upgrades for your car to get there.
So Terrys boss/car mechanic tasks him with collecting junk which can be done so in a number of ways. Most of the junk you get will be from interacting with the towns inhabitants, all of whom are already familiar with Terry and his bs. This, again is where the games writing style shines. One of the first characters you encounter is Raging Ricky, a yellow headed dude who is mad at Terry for jocking his style. Throughout the game Ricky will chase you down while free roaming and upon catching you, will force you into a one on one top down bumper cars match. Although this activity is a pretty fun distraction from the rest of the game, it’s about the only one of its kind you’re gonna get. Most of the game is based around collecting junk scattered around the open world in a very collectathon manor which should be familiar to anyone who’s played Banjo Kazooje and the like. You can also collect money to buy gear like a paraglider or a baseball bat for smashing everything in the town pieces.. which is how you find more money. The limited variety in what you’re doing isn’t a huge deal as this is a game you can easily beat in one 2-3 hour sitting. It’s interesting that despite Terrys job being a taxi driver, there are no missions like races or delivering passengers like crazy taxi that utilize the car specifically. But what is offered, that being a mini open world collectathon, is certainly enough to have fun with during that time. Although, I do wonder what a version of this game would be like that’s a little longer and has more to do in its open world.
The open world itself I would describe as being impressively large for an indie game but of course much smaller than what you’d see in a triple an open world game, which I think in this games case is definitely for the better. It very much felt like playing a modern version of Grand Theft Auto 3 or The Simpsons Hit and Run. As someone who has played those games to death, it felt refreshing to have that feeling again but in a brand new package. There are times when navigating the open world is a chore however due to it being somewhat vertical with roads layered on top of one another. There were plenty of times when I had to drive laps around the whole map before figuring out how to get to the waypoint I was aiming for. And when on foot, I couldn’t help but compare this collectathon to other games that aren’t open world which naturally have much tighter level design.
I 100%ed Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip and was left wanting even more, which in one way speaks to the games quality and how much fun I had. But in another, it’s like that sad feeling of eating dinner but not feeling full. Next time I could use more items on the menu besides beach fries.