Drag

Drag X Drive comes at an interesting time in the launch lineup for the Nintendo Switch 2. Rather than numerous day-one first-party releases that may risk overshadowing each other, the company has been releasing them one at a time, monthly. First we had Mario Kart World–alongside Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which kind of counts–followed by Donkey Kong Bananza, and now, Drag X Drive. The unconventional sports game is unique in the lineup for not centering around a known franchise. Instead its hook is an almost exclusively multiplayer focus and a novel control scheme based around the system’s mouse functionality. But while it’s a neat showpiece for how dual-mouse controls can create new game experiences, in practice it’s mostly just physically uncomfortable to play and too bare-bones to hold your interest.

Drag X Drive follows in the footsteps of games like Rocket League, mixing various influences to create something new. In this case, its closest analog is wheelchair basketball, a Paralympic sport that allows disabled athletes to play with some modifications. It adds a slight twist to that foundation, though, by taking place inside a skateboarding bowl, allowing players to build up speed and do trick shots to earn score bonuses. It’s a neat concept, and one that could pay homage to the athleticism of the real thing while giving it a wild variation. The hub area even has the look and feel of a basketball skate park, with courts living alongside loads of ramps and stunt areas.

The real hook is its control scheme. While other games have made light use of the Switch 2 mouse controls, Drag X Drive is centered completely around it. You detach both Joy-Con controllers and turn them on their side, and sliding them forward together approximates pushing the wheels of your wheelchair. Doing it in rhythm for a while gets you up to top speed, which is what enables your ability to vert off ramps and do tricks, or just rush into other players for a tackle to steal the ball. You lift a hand and flick your wrist to toss a ball into the basket, and tackling a player from the side or back staggers them for a moment and can throw off their attempted shot. Pressing the shoulder buttons acts as your brakes, and the HD Rumble feature lets you feel the tread of the tires as you roll. In theory, you can even pull off hairpin turns by braking with one wheel while pushing the other, or sliding them in opposite directions.You can pull off more complex tricks like a bunny hop or a backflip off a halfpipe for additional style points. And since the controllers map onto your hands, in the lobby you have free control to do things like wave or high-five.

In practice, though, the whizbang concept is held back by its controls. I’ve tried on a variety of surfaces, from a table to my lap desk to my pants, and I’ve found the controls to be stubbornly inconsistent. It works well enough for performing basic functions to show off the concept, but when the game starts testing your skill, it hits against the limitations of its precision. A handful of single-player minigames in the hub area has you slalom through narrow checkpoints or stunt in a bowl, and aiming your vehicle quickly becomes frustrating. The behind-the-back view in basketball matches means you don’t always have a clear idea of where the ball is, relying on an indicator that points behind you to know who has possession and where. Meanwhile, shooting the ball seems extremely generous with the auto-aim, sinking shots if you just lob in the general right direction, but that also means that you don’t understand the reason for the occasional miss. And since stealing relies on crashing into other players, but only from the front, playing on the relatively small courts in 3v3 matches can lead to a lot of awkward clumps of players.

Even when the controls do work, it can be exhausting to constantly push your Joy-Con mice for every small action. Having to physically exert yourself for movement as well as taking shots is a quick way to get tired, which says something about the impressive physical prowess of actual athletes, but doesn’t make for a very fun or relaxing experience at home. I found myself wishing there were a standard gamepad option, but I also understand that would compromise the point of the game and put players on very uneven fields. But even just getting from place to place in the lobby can be a chore, as you have to wheel yourself over to the hubs for different options and game modes. I’ve played a handful of short sessions and by the end my arms needed a break, so it really doesn’t lend itself to sustained, lengthy sessions.

To the extent that the clever control scheme makes it a neat showpiece for the Switch 2 mouse controls, it works. The lobby where you queue up for matches has some minigames scattered around, along with props like an automated jump rope to practice bunny hops or a steep hill that you actually can climb if you push yourself hard. But even then there are strange limitations. There are bowling pins scattered at one location, apparently for you to crash through, but even in a solo single-player lobby it won’t let you take the basketball out of the court to chuck it at the pins. Why? It just seems arbitrary and holds Drag X Drive from letting you make your own fun.

It doesn’t help that Drag X Drive isn’t much to look at. The Switch 2 has already been used to pull off impressive graphical feats thanks to Nintendo’s knack for art style. It isn’t the most powerful system, but Nintendo can make games look great and stylized. Drag X Drive has some very light stylistic elements–essentially a clean near-future extreme sports aesthetic, with exaggerated arms and hands on your robotic-looking players–but they aren’t pushed far enough to make it look distinct. It looks clean and well-rendered, but at the same time sterile and unexciting.

Taking a shot in Drag X Drive

Gallery

You can customize your player character with a handful of options including choosing a number, a body type (Guard, Forward, or Center), and customizing your helmet, armor, frame, and tires. For the most part this comes down to selecting a color and texture style, so the helmet is really where most of the customization lies. You can unlock extra options, up to 12 in total, by earning trophies in minigames and bot matches. And for the time being, that appears to be it.

When you get into a multiplayer lobby, the matches are quick and move along at a clip. You’ll usually queue up for a 3v3 basketball match–or occasionally, 2v2–and the matches only last a few minutes at a time. At the end, you’ll see some accolades like “Pro Passer” or “Cheer Champ” that award different styles of play, but those are ephemeral. They don’t seem to grant any permanent progression. Some of these might correspond to trophies that are used for customization unlocks, but finding the trophies list–even with an icon specifying that there are a paltry 25 in the game–is not clearly signposted. There doesn’t seem to be any meta progression or customization beyond that, so there’s very little to tempt me back. In between matches, the lobby might automatically queue you into a quick minigame, like a race to catch a rebound shot as it bounces erratically across the whole lobby skatepark, which works well enough to add a bit of variety.

In the moment-to-moment multiplayer gameplay, there is fun to be had in short bursts. I am not a baller, in or out of a virtual wheelchair, so my skills were limited, but I was able to mostly hold my own and pull off the occasional trick shot. That element may be the smartest thing Drag X Drive has going for it, because trick shots reward a very small score bonus. While your shots are worth two or three points as normal in basketball, doing it with a flourish will add a decimal to your score–making it worth 2.1, for example. That decimal point won’t be enough to change the ultimate outcome of a game if one side is simply sinking more shots, but for close matches it can make the final seconds thrilling and encourages players to attempt riskier, cooler shots.

However, that recenters the focus on the fundamental problem with Drag X Drive: It’s not very fun to play, because the controls are alternatively exhausting, imprecise, or both. Even pulling off the trick shots that give the game its personality and nuance requires getting up to top speed, which means navigating finicky tiring controls and avoiding bumping into other players. This is a great game for showing off what the Switch 2 can do conceptually, but it doesn’t make a good case for why you’d actually want to do it for very long.

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