As the festive cheer flows within me (and I got some spare Christmas cash from family & friends of course), I decided to dip back into the Xbox 'Countdown' sale this week and pick up a few more gaming bargains. While Resident Evil Village has been my biggest buy so far, I decided to also go for Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 on a whim, and I've been pleasantly surprised by what this nifty little kart racer has offered up so far.

I've dabbled in the last two games during free trial weekends and such, but I never ended up picking either of them up. The big reason for that, honestly, was the complete lack of any sort of voice acting within the two titles. Sure, that might not sound like a huge sticking point for a kart racer, but when your brand of animated racing action is all based around existing Nickelodeon characters, it's very odd to be messing around with a silent SpongeBob SquarePants or a mute Michelangelo.

Thankfully, the team at BamTang Games has rectified this with the series' third outing, and it makes for a much more complete experience this time around. This isn't top tier AAA voicing sure, but it's pretty typical voice acting for a kart racer and the team has done a fine job at injecting some perky personality into Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 and its take on the genre.

The core racing is pretty bloody good as well. I don't remember much about my trial time with the first two games, but Slime Speedway is really slick at 60FPS on Xbox Series X. Whether you're on land or in the water it's a responsive experience all round, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how close to Mario Kart 8 the actual on-track gameplay feels. It doesn't quite match Nintendo's ever-popular effort but still, this is a great kart racer nonetheless.

There's a good amount of content crammed in here too, thanks to the team building on what came before as part of the first two games. While I'd of loved a Crash Team Racing-style adventure mode — something that this game sadly lacks — there are more than 30 tracks present here, along with over 20 playable characters across various Nickelodeon series. From what I've played so far they're all pretty fun to race around on as well, and as I've already mentioned, that voice acting improves the character roster tremendously.

At full price that lack of a proper career mode is a bit of a sticking point I must admit, but it's currently on sale for the first time since its October launch; at a decent 60% off no less. This Xbox racer is absolutely worth £15.99 or $19.99 of any kart racing fan's money, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as a Countdown sale pickup if you're after a more casual game to wrap up the festive break!

Have you played any of the Nickelodeon Kart Racer titles? What do you think of them? Let us know down below.