Garfield Kart 2 - All You Can Drift

I organize Saturday night couch tournaments for a living, so trust me when I say the first question I ask about any kart racer is: can four people jump in, pick a character, and start laughing within two minutes? Garfield Kart 2 - All You Can Drift almost gets there, and that gap between almost and yes is frustratingly wide. The setup is pure kart-racer basics. Eight characters drawn from Garfield's comic-strip universe, each slotted into light, medium, or heavy weight classes that nudge their acceleration and top speed in familiar ways. Garfield and Odie land in medium, Nermal goes light, Jon Arbuckle and Dr. Liz Wilson ride heavy. You customize bumpers, wheels, spoilers, and paint jobs before hitting one of twelve tracks spread across three Grand Prix cups. The three worlds, a detective city, pirate seas, and a Wild West rodeo, look cheerful and cel-shaded in a comic-strip style that genuinely suits the license. The soundtrack is a pleasant surprise, with several tracks delivering energetic, well-produced music. Item chaos, rockets, pies, and springboards, keeps races lively in the back half of the pack. Three speed classes, 100cc, 150cc, and a mirrored mode, round out the package. On paper: fine. In practice: the cracks show fast. The drift mechanic, which is supposedly the whole point given the title, works well enough when the controls cooperate, but player feedback at launch called out slippery handling that only gets worse at higher speed classes. More damaging for my crew: there are no button-remapping options and no volume slider in the settings menu, an extraordinary omission for a 2025 retail release. The AI leans aggressive and rubberbands hard, which can flip you from second to last in a single item barrage with no realistic route back before the finish line. And while local split-screen for four players is present and functional, the online side is a mess: you cannot create a private lobby to race with friends remotely, only random public matchmaking, and what little online population exists has been thinning since launch with no post-release updates to address it. The content ceiling is low. Twelve tracks is lean even for a budget kart racer, and completing all three Grand Prix cups plus unlocking customization parts can be done in a single sitting. Dedicated fans of Garfield: Furious Racing will find this sequel strips away some of the predecessor's personality in a clear bid to mirror Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, down to kart animations, power-up behavior, and circuit obstacle design. Critics have noted the similarities are hard to ignore. There are no battle arenas, no team modes, and no seasonal content on the roadmap that anyone can confirm is coming. For a four-friends couch session it works for a couple of hours, especially with younger players who will not care about the rough edges. For anyone expecting a feature-complete package, the gaps add up. Botton line: local split-screen saves it from being a total write-off, but missing private online lobbies, locked controls, and only twelve tracks make this hard to recommend unless you specifically need a family-friendly couch racer with Garfield's face on it. Hold out for a significant discount before pulling the trigger.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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