The game was released on May 12, 2010, for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. A Downloadable contnet (DLC) of the game was released in August 8, and in January 2011, it was patched a problem in which players who downloaded content could not get achievements unlocked and added them to their gamerscore. The game itself alongside the DLC was removed from the Xbox 360 stores on July 29, 2024, along with over 220 digital titles on the Microsoft's system, making it no longer purchasable. It was not backward compatible with Xbox Series X/S. It has been met with a negative reception for most critics upon release, for its gameplay and graphics.
Gameplay
Example of the gameplay in Things on Wheels.
In Things on Wheels, players control remote control cars in racing competitions. In the game through many racing have non-linear track design, where player can choose various pathway that can branch to shortcuts or secrets.[1] They may choose to collect one of four power-ups (freeze, shield, static shocker, or speed boost), that gives temporal abilities.[1][2]
Single-player mode tasks players to race against a CPU player. Outside the game, players may use a sandbox mode to freely learn tracks and their layout.[2]
Things on Wheels was the second, and Load Inc. last game released game from the studio, exclusively on Xbox 360 (pictured).
Development
Following the completion and release of Load inc.'s Mad Tracks (2006) port for the Xbox Live Arcade, studio began development of the project.[3] With its innovation in racing game genre been non-linear track design.[4][5][6] The game's size was 150 megabytes along with Track editor that was not featured in Xbox Live version of Mad Tracks, due to initial limitations of game size in XBLA at the time.[7] (Vision) Camera setting during gameplay like from the prior title was considered but scrapped, as it could not fit into the game due to a doubt of its usefulness.[8][9][10]
Microsoft Windows version of the game was despite been planned to be released along with Xbox 360 version, but it was cancelled for unknown reason.[8][9][10]
In April, a short teaser trailer was released. According to the art director of Load Inc., Herve Nedelec, the length of the trailer was short intentionally, but long enough to get a feeling of its races and the discovery of the huge house inside and outside.[15] Later that same year, screenshots of RC classes were revealed.[16][17]
One of the screenshot that was shown, prior to game's release.
Game was released on Xbox 360 at Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MS Points on May 12, 2010.[18][19][20][21][22] Later in May 28, two Downloadable content packs (DLC) were announced to be released, where Microsoft approved and certified them.[23][24] The first DLC achievement called "ToW Night 20" was released on June 15, where player had to win a race with the 'Red lantern' rule as 'RC master' at AI level of 7. It was ment to reward 20 gamerscore, once the achievement was done,[24] but it was never released.[25] The latter one did came out a month later on July 15. Both "VrooM" and "RooAR" added 1 achievement and 5 track courses.[25] The other one was released in August 8, and in January 2011, it was patched a problem in which players who downloaded content could not get achievements unlocked and add them to their gamerscore.[26]
Removal from Xbox stores
The game and its DLC was removed from the Xbox 360 stores on July 29, 2024, along with over 220 digital titles on the Microsoft's system, making it no longer purchasable.[27][28] It was not included to be Backward compatible with Xbox Series X/S.[28][29][30]
Things on Wheels received mostly negative reviews from critics. According to Metacritic, the game has a "generally unfavorable" rating of 41 based on 11 critics.[31] Jack DeVries of IGN criticized the game's CPU players' faultiness and stated the single-player campaign was "boring" with a "poorly written" story.[1][33]
The game's graphics and visuals were mostly viewed negatively by multiple critics.[1][2][11] Jack expressed that he saw other Indie games looking better than TOW, by the time when it was released.[1] The darkness of it was also criticized by Brett Todd of GameSpot, as it would "often obscure track hazards".[2] But the praise however, gave Stacy from Xbox Addict, claming that they were "a nice upgrade from Mad Tracks", with been more detailed than its predecessor.[34]
The AI/ CPU opponents were widely criticized.[1][2][11][35]
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