Ed & Edda: GRAND PRIX – Racing Champions

I'm going to be straight with you: I cover shooters for a living, so when a cheerful tie-in kart racer lands on my desk I know exactly who it's for - and it is not me. That said, knowing your audience is half the review, so let's be precise about what Ed & Edda: Grand Prix - Racing Champions actually is and whether it earns a slot on your family PC. The core loop is familiar kart-racer territory. You pick from eight characters - each with a dedicated vehicle and individual stat differences that make driver choice mildly meaningful rather than purely cosmetic. Heavier racers hold their line better through contact, nimbler ones recover from corners faster, and the gap between them is noticeable enough to matter in the hands of kids who will naturally gravitate to a favourite. Four race modes ship in the base game: Free Race, Points Chase, Time Trial, and the full Grand Prix circuit, which is a reasonable spread for the target age group. The boost system centres on collecting blue energy orbs and charging a separate gauge through drifting - pop it at the right moment and you pull ahead. Reviewers noted that orbs cluster heavily near the finish line on most tracks, which means late-game burst timing matters more than sustained racecraft. That works fine for younger players; anyone older will find it predictable within a session or two. The weapon set is where the game shows its age a little. Colour-coded drones substitute for the shell archetypes you know from every other kart racer - a red-seeking drone chases the nearest rival, a blue one targets the race leader. Slime blobs, ice walls, bombs, a lullaby box that briefly puts everyone to sleep, and a proximity Spikes pulse round out the toolkit. It is functional, not inspired. Track design across the dozen European-set circuits is similarly uneven: sunny, colourful visuals with some genuinely nice set-pieces (a dusk Arc de Triomphe stage, Tuscany coastlines with dolphins in the background) sit alongside layouts loaded with long straights feeding into sharp hairpins, narrow maze sections that punish positioning, and shortcuts that apparently do not actually save time. The drifting model has been described as finicky, and the three difficulty tiers are tied to raw vehicle speed rather than AI aggression, which is a blunt solution. For a PC shooter fan dragging a controller out for couch time with younger family members, the split-screen four-player local mode is the honest selling point here. Up to four players on one machine, a controlled session length, and enough visual noise to keep kids engaged. The Goes Europa-Park DLC adds four more tracks set inside the actual theme park, a Rollercoaster Challenge mode, and four additional characters - if the base game lands well with your household it is a logical next step. Steam Deck certification was added post-launch, which is worth knowing if that is your platform. Online multiplayer is absent, so do not come in expecting ranked queues or crossplay - this is a local-only experience by design. Fred, Scout Team