Nintendo Switch Critic Reviews

The Nintendo Switch doesn’t allow for too many racing games to shine with the well-regarded Mario Kart 8 Deluxe hogging the spotlight. But Gear.Club Unlimited is stealing the limelight this holiday season with its racing sim action, RPG-lite upgrade system and beautifully rendered licensed cars. Although it’s not a true racing sim, this is still the best racing game available on the Nintendo Switch to date.

Gear.Club Unlimited is a very serious bet for the driving games on Nintendo Switch. Its story mode features a huge amount of races and guarantees lots of hours of entertainment. More than 15 brands of the best cars await for the fans of the genre that own a Switch.

As a semi-casual racing enthusiast I came away impressed at the overall presentation of Gear.Club Unlimited. The car design is beautiful, the racing is smooth and fluid, and the inclusion of the performance workshop is a welcome addition. While it does fall short of becoming a viable replacement for Forza fans, it does provide the Switch with a fun racing game for enthusiasts looking for a more realistic racing experience. If you’re looking for an experience that is unique only to a racing game on Switch, try taking Gear.Club on a subway or train with the window down and feel the wind through your hair as you blast down the open road driving a beautifully detailed McLaren 570s.

Aside from sub-par sound design, Gear.Club Unlimited offers up an outstanding racing experience for Switch. It straddles the line nicely between offering up a sim-infused experience while keeping the on-track action fast and exciting. The amount of racing types available is impressive and the sense of progression makes it easy for a quick play session to turn into a marathon. GCU is a flawed experience but winds up being greater than the sum of its few flaws thanks to it providing a lot of fun on the track in all of its racing styles. Off the track, it’s fun to expand and customize. It’s a great-looking game and a fine showcase of what can be done with the Switch for racing games — even at an early stage in its lifespan.

As long as you don’t take the “Serious racing on Switch!” pitch too seriously, you’ll have a lot of fun with Gear.Club Unlimited. This is an engaging, retro arcade racer with a rewarding structure that puts bigger-name games to shame. I’ve reviewed most of this season’s major racers, including Gran Turismo Sport and Need for Speed Payback, and I can honestly say Gear.Club Unlimited was the most entertaining of the bunch. Gear up for a good time, Switch owners.

Gear.Club Unlimited is the most traditional racer to hit the Switch, and a successful outing for Microïds / Eden Games Mobile The graphics, although not as slavish to accurate detail like in a Gran Turismo title, still manage to hold their own, and are crisp and enjoyable.

Gear.Club Unlimited is a highly entertaining racing game that sits firmly at the casual end of the realistic racer spectrum. It can be a thrillingly immediate experience, particularly on the go, where you can blast through one of its sweeping courses in just a minute or so. Switch owners hoping for a Gran Turismo or a Forza to call their own will have to wait a little longer, however. What was a commendably rounded console-like racer on mobile seems just a little bit lightweight on Switch, while a few ill-fitting parts have survived the console rebuild.

Gear.Club Unlimited is a fun but flawed racer. If you put in the effort to get to grips with its unique handling model you’ll find a game that you can really sink your teeth into, and it’ll reward you with plenty of licensed cars and a ton of events to complete. Go in expecting something that handles like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport, however, and you’ll be very disappointed.

If Gear.Club Unlimited can't compete with games like Forza Motorsport or GranTurismo and isn't as fun as a Mario Kart, it's good enough to be considered as a good way to entertain players in need of driving games on Nintendo Switch.

A racing game with a lot of potential which is comfortable being just a port of a mobile game, instead of a complete experience that takes advantage of Nintendo Switch's potential.