Futuristic Racing Set ‘Anki Overdrive’

Buzzing with current and fast as hell, slot car sets made by companies like Tyco and Aurora made my manually powered die-cast trinkets look positively lifeless.

But times have changed, naturally, and while hobbyists still tinker with the electric marvels, kids these days have a taste for some higher-tech thrills.

Consumer robotics company Anki delivers exactly that in Anki Overdrive. This is slot car racing for a new generation, and a magical showpiece toy to boot.

Overdrive is the follow-up to last year’s Anki Drive. The concept is the same: Players race miniature cars around a track, using their mobile devices to control speed, switch lanes, and fire weapons. But while Drivewas a tech marvel, it had some serious shortcomings; namely, it didn’t have enough track. Drive came packaged with one track mat. If you wanted a new track shape, you had to buy an entirely new mat.

Overdrive tears that concept open and lets you put it back together yourself. The Anki Overdrive Starter Kit ($150) comes with two cars, a four-car charging base, two little risers, and 10 track pieces that can be rearranged to create eight different layouts. The pieces magnetically snap together and are surprisingly easy to shift around.

In fact, Anki Overdrive’s greatest feat might be its overall ease of use. After you set up a track, you’ll need to download a free app to your iOS or Android device and charge up the two cars that come with the game. Then you stick the cars on the track, open the app, and watch in awe as it miraculously just works.

I tested Overdrive using two different phones and an iPad, and each time the devices quickly paired up with the vehicles, which then do a quick “scanning lap” to map your crazy creation (in part to ensure that it actually connects properly). Once that’s done, they stop on a dime at the starting line, waiting for you to begin a race.

This all looks like voodoo because there are no grooves or anything on the slick black track sections. The cars, which sport a tiny 50Mhz computer and infrared cameras, read information hidden inside each track section to determine their position and relationship to other racers.

But as with any good magic trick, you don’t see any of that. You just see a bunch of little cars zooming around a trackless track.

You can exert a modicum of control over your car. Tilting your device makes it switch between four “lanes,” a throttle speeds it up or slows it down, and tapping on various weapons will fire invisible blasts to disable opponents or tractor beams to slow them down. Each car gets upgraded the more you use it, and that info is saved to each device. So, for instance, your iPhone’s Groundshock car might only be level 3, while my Galaxy S6 Groundshock is level 7 and has a few cool new tricks.

While it’s best to play Overdrive with and against other humans, Anki provides a surprisingly robust single-player experience too. You can indulge in a variety of race types (Battles, Time Trials, even King of the Hill matches) against a bunch of cartoonish AI characters, and the programming here isn’t half bad. It’s not quite as fun as going neck and neck with another human, but the different computer-controlled competitors show some real smarts in how they handle themselves.

Occasionally, however, the illusion falters. Cars periodically skid off the track, and on a few occasions I watched a car just totally freak out, turn around, and head into oncoming traffic. Our machine overlords are not as infallible as they’d have you believe.

Then there’s the issue of cost — and it’s a hefty one. While you can get decent mileage out of the standard straightaway and curves of the Starter Kit, you’ll quickly want to plunk down for the t-shaped Collision Kit ($30), a few extra Corner and Speed Kits ($20 a pop), and of course the ridiculously cool Launch Kit ($30) — yes, a jump — to really build the whole thing out. You’ll likely want some extra cars, too, but at $50 apiece, they’ll also test your budget. (Owners of the original Anki Drive can rest easy knowing the new one is backwards compatible, so old cars work fine in the new game.)

We’re talking about a good $300 to get the most out of it, and while Anki has a few bundles on offer to alleviate the financial strain, there’s no way around it: Overdrive is a costly investment.

This is a rare case, however, where the steep price actually seems worth it when you watch your friends, partner, kids, and pets stare in awe at this insane thing in action. Anki is clearly the future of living room racing; if you can swallow the price tag, it’ll leave your old racing toys in the dust.