Drag x Drive review – fun and frustrating in almost equal measure
A new Nintendo console usually means a fresh innovation, which in turn leads to a new game highlighting that innovation. For the Wii, it was Wii Sports, and for the original Switch, it was Arms. Now it’s the turn of the Nintendo Switch 2 and Drag x Drive, a game that emphasizes the Joy-Con 2’s mouse mode controls as a means of wheeling yourself up and down a court and shooting hoops. Sounds fun, right? Well, it is, kind of.
If you’ve somehow missed the trailer footage for Drag x Drive, let me break it down for you. What you’ve got here is a wheelchair basketball game, though it feels more like wheelchair netball, as there’s no bouncing or dribbling, with three-minute-long 3v3 matches on a small court. To control your chair, you use the two Joy-Con 2s as if your hands were on the wheels, pushing yourself forwards with both hands or turning by pushing just one of the controllers forward, while you shoot at the goal with a flick of the wrist. You can also steal the ball from an opponent by clattering into them when you’re defending your goal. It’s pretty simple stuff, at least to start with.
Your Drag x Drive experience starts out with a pretty chunky tutorial that introduces you to all the basics of movement, playing with the ball, and in-game scenarios. The tutorial is longer and a little slower than I’d like, but it still does a pretty good job of feeding you the basics before you jump into an online lobby or harness your skills in Bot Battles, which, as you can probably guess from the name, is a format that sees you take on the game’s talented AI. I say talented, as there are nine difficulty levels, and it gets pretty tricky once you reach level six and upwards.
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A new Nintendo console usually means a fresh innovation, which in turn leads to a new game highlighting that innovation. For the Wii, it was Wii Sports, and for the original Switch, it was Arms. Now it’s the turn of the Nintendo Switch 2 and Drag x Drive, a game that emphasizes the Joy-Con 2’s…