NeoSprint [Review]

Atari arcade classic Sprint is reborn with new bells and whistles, while keeping its spirit intact.

NeoSprint. Credit: Atari / Headless Chicken Games

The Sprint series of arcade games were top-down, single screen racers, with steering wheel and pedal controls popular in the 1970s and 80s, beginning with Sprint 2—confusingly not a sequel, rather it supported two players—in 1976. With NeoSprint, Atari and Headless Chicken Games have pulled the series into the modern era while keeping a bit of the retro flair.

The core of the game is the same—drivers race on a track visible on a single screen. NeoSprint iterates on that core by adding more advanced racing gameplay features. The game adds a hand brake to enable drifting; it also features drafting mechanics, allowing you to exploit your position among the other cars to gain more speed. NeoSprint also lets players choose from nine car types with varied stats, and for those that don’t like the single screen view, there’s a new camera mode that will track your car in single player.

NeoSprint. Credit: Atari / Headless Chicken Games

Outside of the new racing gameplay mechanics, NeoSprint brings the series into the third dimension. Tracks are seen from an isometric perspective and include verticality; track designs can now have roads that loop over or under each other. Slopes will give you a boost of speed while ramps can make you fly into the air.

NeoSprint features a campaign mode that is reminiscent of Mario Kart, with a series of cups that include increasingly difficult levels. Each cup is made up of a set of multi car races where the place you finish earns you points that dictate your standing. There is a key difference—each set of races culminates in a 1 v 1 race against a single rival. These challenge races give the game the flavor of having a story, but there isn’t one, since your rivals only get a single line of dialogue before and after the race. I do wish more effort was put into giving the campaign an actual story; having interesting characters would give this otherwise generic-looking game a bit more personality. Winning a set of races will unlock new cosmetics and parts for the Track Builder.

NeoSprint. Credit: Atari / Headless Chicken Games

At first I felt like the campaign races were too easy. I was wrong. The difficulty level quickly ramps up, with the game throwing complex tracks and opponent AI that suddenly gets much smarter. This is fitting, because according to Sprint 2 developer Dan Elderen, Sprint was the first racing game to feature actual driver AI that responded to player performance. By the second of the cups, a single mistake will cost you dearly, so races get a lot more tense.

Outside of the game’s campaign mode, there are also Grand Prix, Obstacle Course, and Time Trial modes. NeoSprint also allows up to eight players to race each other locally, something I didn’t try but am certain would be a blast. Unfortunately, multiplayer is local only.

NeoSprint. Credit: Atari / Headless Chicken Games

NeoSprint includes a robust Track Builder that lets players design levels that are on-par with the circuits found in the campaign mode. The controls are easy to understand and work fine with a controller; I was off to the races as soon as I completed the brief tutorial. Players can share tracks, and like Mario Maker, the game makes players successfully run one lap on their creations before they can be published. My fun was hampered by an irritating bug that caused the camera to rotate endlessly, but I’m sure this is something that’ll be ironed out quickly in a patch.

There’s a lot to love in NeoSprint. Its chaotic racing is a ton of fun, and the Track Builder can potentially provide infinite new content. I can see the game becoming a couch multiplayer classic, though it’ll have a lot more longevity if Atari decides to add online multiplayer someday.

NeoSprint is available now on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 / 5, Xbox One / Series X|S, and Atari VCS.

Overall Score: 7/10

Played on: PS5