Gameplay in
Furious Karting includes a tutorial natured Scenario Mode where you learn different tricks to do in your kart, Quick Race, where you'd likely spend most of your single-player time, Multiplayer, where you can compete with up to three others using a split screen and four controllers, and finally, Time Attack Mode.
All of the modes seem suitably solid, and even though the graphics move at a fair clip (Furious Karting does have a nice frame rate), the game just doesn't have any flare or excitement. A typical Quick Race consists of you selecting a character and racing against others, using power-ups and a melee weapon to slow them down and keep the edge.
Each character has several characteristics, including Karma, Fun, and Speed. These are supposed to make a difference in how others view you, what kind of stunts you are capable of, and how fast you can go, respectively. While it is interesting that a racing game includes RPG-like elements, in practice they just don't make that big a difference, and this is really just an arcade racer, no matter what Infogrames wants you to think.
Power-ups typically affect what sorts of attacks you can make on your opponents, and there is a pretty decent selection of them. It doesn't make any sense that opponents never seem to pick up the power-ups, though, so they just sit on the track until you get around to grabbing them.
