“Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition” Review by Nick Navarro
The Fast & Furious series has always been about one thing: pure, over-the-top spectacle. Cars flying through the air, explosions lighting up the night sky, and impossible stunts pulled off with a straight face. When I heard that “Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition,” a console port of the 2022 arcade game, was coming home courtesy of GameMill, I was cautiously hopeful for a fun, high-octane throwback. After all, who doesn’t love a good dose of chaos behind the wheel? Unfortunately, while it captures the excitement of the arcade experience almost perfectly, it doesn’t bring nearly enough to justify the price or the time investment.
At its core, “Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition” is a mission-based racer rather than a traditional street racing game. Each stage has you completing a timed objective: reach the finish before the clock runs out, or fail the mission. It’s simple and straightforward, pure arcade structure. You choose from a lineup of eight licensed vehicles, including familiar names like the Dodge Charger, Shelby GT500 KR, Ford GT, and even a Jeep Wrangler. These are cool cars to have, and they handle with the kind of exaggerated precision that instantly feels right for an arcade-style experience. From a gameplay perspective, the first few missions are undeniably fun. There’s something nostalgic about launching off ramps, weaving through fiery debris, and blasting nitro at just the right moment to shave off seconds. The tracks are packed with shortcuts, destructible set pieces, and branching routes that make every race feel like an action scene from the movies. The sense of speed is intense, and the cinematic camera flourishes, while occasionally dizzying, do a solid job of keeping the energy high. For a few minutes at a time, it genuinely feels like a lost relic of the early 2000s arcade era brought back to life.
But that nostalgic thrill fades fast. The biggest issue here is the complete lack of content. “Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition” features just six tracks, and each one can be finished in just a couple of minutes. That means the entire game can be seen and beaten in well under half an hour. Even with its fast-paced structure and replay-friendly design, there’s only so much mileage you can get from six environments, especially when none of them change or evolve over time. You can unlock new versions of the same cars with extra boosts, but these feel more like minor tweaks than meaningful rewards. It’s a case of quantity and depth both being sacrificed for authenticity, and while that may make sense for an arcade cabinet meant for quick sessions, it doesn’t translate well to a console release. Playing solo quickly becomes repetitive, but local split-screen can help bring some life back into it. Racing side-by-side with a friend I’m sure will deliver some laughs and chaotic fun, especially when you both go flying off a ramp or narrowly miss a massive explosion.
Presentation-wise, it nails the arcade aesthetic. Bright lights, exaggerated motion blur, and booming sound effects—it’s all here. The problem is that the experience feels hollow once the initial novelty wears off. There’s no progression system, no unlockable events, and no real reason to keep coming back. Once you’ve completed the handful of tracks and seen the few cinematic flourishes, the curtain drops, and you’re left wondering what else there is to do. Sadly, the answer is “not much.” I can respect what “Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition” is trying to be. It’s not pretending to be a deep racing sim or an open-world car culture experience; it’s an arcade game through and through. But the transition from a physical cabinet, where the thrill comes from the seat, the wheel, and the vibration of the machine, to a home console setting strips away the very elements that made it special. Without the flashing lights and booming speakers of the arcade, what’s left feels more like a hollow imitation of the real thing.
As a quick nostalgia trip or a short burst of action with a friend, it’s serviceable. But as a console release meant to stand on its own, it simply doesn’t hold up. There’s fun to be had in those fleeting minutes of chaos, but it’s over before it even begins, and there’s nothing waiting on the other side to keep you invested. I wanted to like “Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition” more than I did, but after wrapping up all six tracks in a single sitting, I was left more disappointed than entertained. If you ever stumble across this in an arcade, definitely give it a few rounds; it’s exactly where it belongs. But as a console experience, “Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition” burns out far too soon, leaving nothing but tire smoke and missed potential in its wake.
5.5/10
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Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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