September’s video game release calendar just went from stacked to stuffed. It was already looking plentiful with promising indies like Demonschool and Baby Steps releasing alongside the more heavily marketed Borderlands 4 and Cronos: The New Dawn. But with Hollow Knight Silksong now slated to launch on Sept. 4, the early stretch of the month just became a total free-for-all. With the massive Metroidvania disrupting any and all marketing plans, will Sept. 10’s Garfield Kart 2: All You Can Drift be able to keep up with the competition?
That’s how I would open this article if I was an idiot.
Screw your overarching industry analysis! Kick your instinct to narrativize video game releases off a table! Garfield has no patience for that crap; he is only concerned with matters of lasagna. And it’s that mentality that I adopted when I stepped away from a week of ceaseless Silksong hype to try the cat’s new kart racer, which is currently running a public stress test on Steam through August 24. Does the tuned-up sequel actually have a chance to rise above the meme status that its predecessor has long enjoyed? Shut up, man.
While there isn’t too much content to try in Garfield Kart 2’s stress test, there’s enough there to tell you that it is indeed Garfield Kart. Publisher Microids has never been shy about letting the series be a low-budget Mario Kart with Garfield characters, so why change that now, even if Mario Kart itself is in an era of evolution? If anything, Garfield Kart 2’s disciplined commitment to normal three-lap races might give it some purist appeal as its peers get more high-concept.
For the test weekend, I could choose from Garfield, Nermal, or Liz. “Liz, really?” you may be chuckling to yourself right now. To that, I say, I will mail your dumb ass to Abu Dhabi if you make fun of Liz. Not only would you be outing yourself as a fake Garfield fan, but you’d be missing the fact that her high speed stat makes her a great option for cocky racers. That, plus actual kart customization, unironically gives Garfield Kart 2 more driver customization than Mario Kart World. Eat your heart out, Cow.
As for the racing itself? Yeah, I mean, it’s Garfield Kart, dude. You do three lap races and throw items that are definitely not Mario Kart items reskinned to look like dog food bowls and lasagna. The big addition — big enough to merit a nonsensical title that is convinced it is making a pun — is drifting. You can now hold the right trigger down when turning to drift as you can in any modern kart racer, and even do “tricks” by pressing the drift button while in midair. Is that revolutionary? What, no, stop it. But it does give a historically stiff racer some much-needed fluidity, even though hitting another kart will still stop you dead.
While there are only two tracks featured in the stress test, they do give a sense that developer Eden Games is designing courses with drifting and trick hopping in mind. A neon-lit city level has me executing tight drifts across a series of rooftops, occasionally even giving me shortcuts if I can time my turn correctly. The “Spaghetti Western” track has plenty of good drift points too, as the last stretch of it has me weaving through an old-timey town’s streets. Some subtle touches, like slightly ramped track edges, leave room for players to trick over a gap instead of taking a roundabout turn. I’m legitimately curious to see how much route optimization potential there is in other tracks. Seriously.
Will the straightforward nature of races appeal to players who detest Mario Kart World’s lap abandonment? Stop it.
Will any slight charm it has in customization get run over by Sonic CrossWorld’s more sophisticated approach to kart building? Oh my God, dude.
Will it even make it to the podium when Kirby Air Riders is poised to earn a maligned GameCube game way more fans on Nintendo Switch 2? Eat rocks.
Garfield Kart 2 is impervious to this nonsense. It is an unkillable game that will parry any logical argument launched at it. That’s because it exists outside of traditional video game cycles, measured in review scores and Game of the Year awards. It’s a mythical meme that you’ll experience for years through your favorite YouTubers. It will materialize in your Steam library one day when a friend buys it for you as a gag, but it takes you a full year to notice that you have it. You will load it up during a January gaming dry spell after you’ve finished running through your holiday backlog. And when you do, you may find a perfectly playable kart racer that is brave enough to make Liz OP, as God intended.
You can try Garfield Kart 2: All You Can Drift’s stress test on Steam through Aug. 24.
