[Review] Drive Buy - Nintendo Switch

Developer and Publisher: Glitchers
Categories: Online, Driving, Party
Release Date: 03.31.21

Drive Buy seems to be the latest in both vehicular combat games and forever games. You know, the kind of games that live and die on the basis of the content slowly being updated through seasons, and with the grind. Much like many a free to play game. Drive Buy isn’t a free game though, it’s $25. Also, a huge pet peeve of mine, you need to create an account to play the game.

That aside, I had a lot of fun with Drive Buy. It’s a quick and crazy, and to be honest, pretty addicting once you get in a groove. To make it simple, you drive and make money. Lets go into detail though. There’s plenty of modes to play, from grabbing crates and delivering them, holding onto a piggybank to amass the most cash, and a mode where you just need to get the most money. Find it, or destroy the other drivers to get it. There’s a few stages to cycle around in, and so you’re hopefully not doing the same thing ad nauseum, each game is voted on.

Matches last a few minutes, and they never drag on due to how chaotic Drive Buy gets. Missiles, a magnet to steal money and powerups, a freeze ray, mines other drivers will need to boost and drift to wiggle off. It gets a bit messy when you have a decent size room of players all going crazy with powerups you find, and at times can seem like you’re just getting messed around with, if you get bombarded. I do find that a part of the fun however, the feeling of everything just being in good fun or like someone is just yanking your chain. At one point in a piggy bank match, I had the bank, was backed into a corner, and then just proceeded to circle around in reverse for a little bit, and nobody could seem to get me and I was having a blast. Mix this with the fact at any time you can post little emojis or stickers and then it becomes a blast. Blow someone up? Give them the good ol’ thumbs up.

Play online, or even with bots and you’ll start leveling up. Leveling up unlocks the content in the game. New drivers/cars and a plethora of cosmetics await you. There’s a lot, from paint jobs, new wheels, new exhausts, and this means you’re going to have to do a lot of grinding to get everything. I don’t much care at all for the drivers you unlock, but they do give you new cars, and some are quite a few levels to get, which can be disappointing. Moreso when unlockables are all under a season. To the best of my knowledge, this can mean late adopters to the game can miss out on content, which I’m never a fan of, especially in a game you need to pay for.

I don’t mind when games have a lot of content and maybe a bit of grind to get the content, but I hate when the game has the ever looming feeling of Fear of Missing Out. I don’t like the feeling that the game can become an obligation to play, just so you unlock something you want. Drive Buy seems to be a game designed like a F2P game and I’m honestly surprised I wasn’t asked to buy premium currency.

Don’t get me wrong however, I had a blast playing and might actually play this long term. I want to do this on my own terms though. I fear for longevity for the game being a paid release as well, where I can see more players coming in if it was a free game with microtransactions.