Fast and Furious Arcade Racing

Where’s the Family?

Raw Thrills has a strong history in making Arcade Games. From TMNT, to Top Gun and Halo, their output may vary in quality, but the titles that do stand out are extremely memorable. If there was, however, a title that I would consider their best, it would be Cruis’n Blast, an arcade port to the Nintendo Switch that was released a few years ago. That said, when it was revealed that the 2022 Fast and Furious Arcade game was coming to consoles, I was extremely excited, given it looks and plays exactly like Cruis’n Blast.

The connection to Cruis’n Blast isn't just the noticeable similarities, but that they share a history. In 2007, a game simply titled “Cruis’n” was released for the Wii. However, it was actually an arcade port of a Fast and Furious Arcade game made years prior. When the developer was set to release it on the home console market, they unfortunately lost the license and had to rebrand. 

This is likely why this port of the 2022 arcade game feels exactly like Cruis'n Blast, given they were developed by the same team. And, to be honest, if you simply rebranded this game as another entry in the Cruis'n series, no one would notice the difference, especially as the game doesn't really represent the Fast and Furious films much at all, given the lack of some of the series's most notable cars and the lack of any actors from the films. While it wouldn't affect gameplay, the choice of racing as Dom, Letty, Han, or Roman would have been something to showcase the branding. However, given the budgets of most titles, the licensing would have inflated the budget significantly not only due to the payments to the actors, but also any future royalties.

If you are unfamiliar with Cruis'n Blast, this is a fast-paced arcade racer where moving forward is your only option. You slam into the wall or tackle a long jump, but the game is generous to always keep you moving forward. The tracks are sparsely detailed and usually a lot of flat, uninteresting buildings, but given the speed you are traveling, you barely keep the generic backgrounds in your peripheral.

Fast and Furious Arcade takes you to six locales ranging from Havana to Hong Kong, Yellowstone, Colombia, to Abu Dhabi, and the Swiss Alps. When Cruis'n Blast came to Nintendo Switch, it featured additional content not found in the arcade release. This extra content consisted of new levels, cars, more shortcuts, and plenty of new modes. It sort of set the bar for arcade ports. However, that care and attention to add to the game isn't present in this release as it is a straight port, albeit optimized for each platform it has been released on. This means no new cars, tracks, or modes. As it stands, there is very little to do outside of the single-player racers. There are leaderboards, split-screen versus play, and a series of challenges, such as simply beating certain stages. 

What feels true to the license is the appearance of attack helicopters, drones, a runaway train, and even attempting to catch a safe full of money, ala Fast Five. These moments do feel connected to the films, but only from a bare minimum perspective. There are plenty of destructible objects on the course, and numerous spots of explosions and chaos as you race against your competition, which is ridiculously hard due to some unfair rubber banding. I also found that they tend to slow down during the last few seconds in the final lap, which led to many of my first-place victories.

The cars are the showcase of most Fast and Furious movies, and you have a total of eight vehicles here. While it is disappointing that cars like the Toyota Supra MKIV from the first film, or Han’s Mazda RX-7, which was featured in Tokyo Drift. While a few cars from the film are present here, there are some cars that have not featured in the series yet.  

The racing here will certainly defy physics, much in the same way the films have done on countless scenarios. Cars will be equipped with nitro boosts to fly by your competitors, but you'll also want to only do this on straightaways, so you are not bouncing off the rails. Still, a lot of that chaos is part of the DNA of games like Cruis'n Blast or even the likes of San Francisco Rush for that matter.

Upon completing all objectives across its six levels, you’ll unlock Extreme mode. This greatly increases the difficulty across its six stages. This also unlocks Furious versions of all 8 cars. While this is a nice way to extend the gameplay experience, with only 6 stages, you'll certainly feel the grind is just not worth it. 

What is odd is that there is no online multiplayer, just 2-player local races. I did notice a few drops in frames in splitscreen when I would execute my nitrous. My experience with the game was solely on Nintendo Switch 2, so the boosted hardware likely had a hand in making the game run like butter.

Fast and Furious Arcade is a wild ride that brings the best qualities of Cruis'n Blast to a vehicle-centric film franchise. While more could have been done to honor the films, or even properly represent them, as well as adding new levels or more cars, Fast and Furious Arcade is still incredibly engaging and feels great to play. I just wish there were more here to keep my interest beyond a few days.

Developer - Raw Thrills, Cradle Games.
Publisher - GameMill Entertainment. Released - October 24th, 2025. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch. Rated - (E 10) - Fantasy Violence. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch.
Review Access - Review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.