REVIEW | Gigantosaurus Dino Kart

LifeIsXbox’s Gigantosaurus Dino Kart review | I have to admit that Gigantosaurus isn’t a really well-known cartoon here, or at the very least not that popular with my children, which surprises me as my 4yo son is really into dinosaurs. Ironically, they wanted to start watching the show AFTER playing the game, where usually the opposite order is true.

Outright Games is well-known for their portfolio of games aimed at younger children and based on well-known IPs and as per usual, they do the source material justice. As a kart racer, you shouldn’t expect any grand adventures or deep plot (those are missing from the show as well) but you can be sure that it will provide a few fun afternoons of racing with or against your children.

What we Liked!

• Tracks & Karts | The tracks are interestingly designed, with shortcuts and plenty of visual treats like giant carnivorous plants or dinosaurs walking alongside you. The titular Gigantosaurus even runs across the track a few times so you can bump into him, my 4yo son found this hilarious. The karts are also quirky and look as if they were cobbled together with plants and other materials the young dinos found lying around.

• Steering aid | Gigantosaurus Dino Kart is aimed at younger children that are fans of the TV show, and their age is likely to keep them from becoming expert racers. You can turn on an assisted mode that helps them steer through the corners, so they can focus on having fun and using their abilities when they see fit.

• Easy Achievements | This is coming from me personally, but I love a good easy achievement list occasionally, and Gigantosaurus Dino Kart will give you the 1000G in a little under 3 hours if you know what you’re doing. You’ll need 4 controllers for the 4-player split screen one, though.

• Localisation | Gigantosaurus Dino Kart has Dutch localisation, which was greatly appreciated by my kids. I usually ask them if the voice actors in Dutch are the same as the ones from the TV show, but neither of them could 100% confirm it as they aren’t super familiar with the show. Here’s them having fun on a sick day:

• Split-screen | You can play with up to 4 players locally in split-screen mode. I think this should be an auto-inclusion in any racing game, but sadly it’s something that a lot of recent titles have failed to support. My kids love to play games like this together and we had a lot of fun, even if I didn’t let them win a single time.

Mixed Feelings

• Items & abilities | The usual items that always find their way into kart racers make an appearance here as well: the coconut acts as your Green Shell, there is a boost item to gain some speed, a shield to protect you from incoming attacks and the equivalent of a banana peel to drop behind you. It was missing a bit more variation, but if you do ever fall behind to the final few racers on the track, you’ll get some more interesting ones like a roar or a continuous boost + bumper shield.

• Drifting | It’s nice that Mario Kart-style drifting is included, and you can even snake together one drift boost into another, but I found it weird that there was no mention of it in the game’s tutorial. I even had to discover the controls for it hidden in some settings menu. Clever use of the drift is about the only skill-intensive aspect of the game though, but will be needed to win in Hard difficulty.

What we Disliked

• No online multiplayer | while we don’t really play a lot of online multiplayer in this house, it’s too bad the option is missing from the game entirely for those who crave some competition versus friends that live far away.

• Controls | There is no way (that I found) to rebind the controls and depending on what you’re used to, this will take some time to adjust. You accelerate with A, use items with X (which is hard to do while accelerating) and drift with RB or RT. It’s not the most conventional controller layout, as I personally prefer that the throttle is tied to the Right Trigger and braking/boosting should be on the LB or LT buttons.

• Sound | It’s nice to have voice acting, but only Rocky and Mazu have lines. The background soundtrack gets repetitive awfully fast, and the sound effects mixing feels off. It seems like activating a boost or using certain items disables some of the sounds for a while after use, and that gives the presentation a cheap feeling whenever it occurs.

• Too easy | While Paw Patrol Grand Prix was too hard (yes, really, the AI kicked my butt on Hard and sometimes even on Medium), Gigantosaurus Dino Kart finds itself at the other spectrum and is generally too easy for experienced racers. For children, however, it’s perfect as they obviously love to win. This isn’t a game you should buy for yourself as an adult, but one for your children to enjoy or to play together with them. So keep that in mind.

How long to beat the story | about 2 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | around 3 hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Paw Patrol Grand Prix, Race With Ryan

Here is some Gigantosaurus Dino Kart Gameplay, if you want to see it in action:

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Robby

Robby lives and breathes video games. When he’s not playing them, he’s talking about them on social media or convincing other people to pick up a controller themselves. He’s online so often, he could practically list the internet as his legal domicile. Belgian games-industry know-it-all.