Wild Gears is a top down arcade style racer, like the classic 80s game Super Sprint. Take control of one of four vehicles over three tracks (in this demo) and win by any means necessary.
The control of Wild Gears is really intuitive, if you've seen Mario 64 DS you will recognize it. There's a circle from which you control direction, and the further away from the center you touch, the faster you'll go. It's really easy to pick up.
The four vehicles behave quite differently, from the quick but easy to damage to the slow but strong and the dependably average car. Races last for four laps, and various power ups appear along the way to help you and your opponents out. The CPU opponents sometimes act a little strangely, but for the most part they provide good competition.
Wild Gears' tracks have different locations, like beach, dirt and forest, although we noticed little real difference between them in terms of handling. The graphics are cheerful, although not very original. The soundtrack will remind older people of 80s games, although even they will probably find it irritating pretty quickly, and the sound effects aren't at all special. For this type of casual game, a four lap race actually seems a bit long, and it's a shame you can't choose that yourself.
Although this type of game's been done better in the past, and while it's not particularly wild and features no gears at all, Wild Gears can provide some casual gaming fun for a few minutes here and there.
