Developed/Published by Codemasters
Released for Xbox 360 (11/14/2014)
Also on PC/PS3
Backwards Compatible on Xbox One
Toybox Turbos comes to us from Codemasters and is the spiritual successor to the classic Micro Machines series. Released in November 2014, this is one of those titles that would have been an XBLA release, but Microsoft stopped using that label around the time the Xbox One came out. Toybox Turbos contains 1000 gamerscore available like most retail titles, as opposed to the 200 or 400 points the old XBLA titles were allotted. Toybox Turbos certainly looks nice, featuring colorful cartoon-like graphics that fit the toy theme perfectly, but let's delve in and see how the gameplay fares.
Toybox Turbos offers up a decent-sized single-player campaign, featuring 7 cups, each of which feature several different types of events. Each cup also uses its own set of cars, which is a good way to make sure the player tries out many of the various vehicles. There are 35 vehicles to collect, with most of them requiring coins that you'll unlock after completing events. The final car in each cup can only be unlocked by defeating the boss in an elimination race, which will be the final event for that cup. The elimination races will be familiar to those who remember the Micro Machines games, where each player starts off with 4 points. When one player overtakes another, the winner gains a point while the loser goes minus one. The 1st one to fill the meter wins the event and in the instance that it drags on too long, it goes into playoff mode where the loser no longer gets points deducted, giving a decent chance for a comeback.