KartWorld: A fun but lonely kart racer on Facebook

It seems like kart racing games might be the new hotness on Facebook, as RockYou's KartWorld has now joined the fray alongside Nexon's KartRider Dash. However, where KartRider Dash placed its focus on real-time multiplayer against living opponents, KartWorld is more of a simulation along the same lines as Car Town, as you'll run your own garage, tune up karts and then occasionally race them against opponents.

KartWorld comes with an integrated quest system, pushing your forward through specific tasks like refueling visiting cars, building new vehicle bays in your shop, visiting friends and even completing race challenges. These races require fuel to run, which recharges over time, or can be purchased with Kart Cash, the game's premium currency. Once you're ready to put the pedal to the metal, you'll be able to simply drag your mouse, without clicking, around your screen to steer your karts; the farther away from the kart you hold your mouse, the faster the kart will drive (until it reaches its own maximum speed).

Automated races are those that take place against only AI controlled karts or ghosts, and they all work in mostly the same way. If you continually upgrade your own karts with new parts, or simply purchase better karts as you level up, you'll usually be able to pull ahead of the pack on a straightaway, but may allow them to catch up when turning until you really get a feel for the controls. It's not that this control setup is difficult to understand, but it is challenging to master, as you'll need to find a balance between glancing at the mini-map to see upcoming turns and not accidentally taking too sharp of a turn around a corner, forcing you to lose precious speed.

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It's unfortunate that racing isn't the entire focus of the game, as these instances are pretty fun once you get the hang of the controls, and it's disappointing to have to return to the garage every few races to wait for your fuel to refill. Still, you'll earn more profits by completing the game's rather mundane odd jobs, which can in turn be spent on your karts, making racing even more fast-paced and fun.

Speaking of vehicle customization, there's an interesting painting mechanic that allows you to actually "draw" your paint onto your vehicles, creating shapes or patterns that otherwise wouldn't be available. You'll have the entire spectrum of colors at your fingertips, so if you're simply a car-customization junkie, there's plenty of that here to go around. You can even jump into a real multiplayer race against other gamers if you want to show your creation off to the masses. Of course, you'll need to actually find other people playing the game first.

If there's anything wrong with KartWorld, it's that it places too much focus on the garage jobs and not enough on the racing itself. With more focus on racing, perhaps more people would actually be available to find for multiplayer races, which would arguably make this one a big contender in the multiplayer Facebook game arena. As it stands, there's definitely room to grow with KartWorld, and you might want to wait a bit before actually investing any major time with the game.

Click here to play KartWorld on Facebook ---->

Have you tried KartWorld or any Facebook game like it? What do you think of the game(s)? Sound off in the comments!