Let's be real for a second. When you think of high-octane, competitive racing, your mind probably goes straight to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or maybe Crash Team Racing. It definitely doesn't go to a lasagna-loving orange cat. And yet, here we are. The internet has a weird, borderline obsessive relationship with the Garfield racing franchise. Specifically, people often get confused about the naming conventions, frequently searching for "Garfield Kart 2 - All You Can Drift."
Here is the thing: that specific title doesn't actually exist.
If you go looking for it on Steam or the PlayStation Store, you're going to come up empty-handed. What actually exists is Garfield Kart: Furious Racing, which released in 2019 as the follow-up to the original 2013 cult classic. It’s basically the "Garfield Kart 2" everyone talks about. It's the game that spawned a thousand speedrunning memes and genuine competitive subcultures. It’s weird. It’s janky. Honestly, it’s kind of a masterpiece of low-budget charm that somehow managed to outlive much "better" games through sheer irony and surprisingly decent drift mechanics.
The Weird Reality of Garfield Kart Furious Racing
If you’re looking for a deep, narrative-driven experience, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is a game where you play as a cat who hates Mondays, driving a wooden cart through a grocery store. The physics are... let’s call them "creative." Sometimes you hit a wall and stop dead; other times, you clip through a corner and shave three seconds off your lap time.
The game features 16 tracks. Some are actually quite pretty! You’ve got the typical Palerock Lake and the Great Wall, but the real star of the show is the "Lasagna Factory." It is exactly what it sounds like. It’s chaotic. It’s orange.
You get eight characters. Garfield, Odie, Jon, Nermal, Arlene, Liz, Harry, and Squeak. Each has different stats, but let’s be honest: everyone plays as Garfield or Jon because playing as Jon Arbuckle in a racing helmet is the peak of comedic gaming.
The gameplay loop is simple. You drift to build up boost. You pick up items. You throw a pie at Odie. You win. Or you lose because the AI is surprisingly aggressive on the higher difficulty settings. There’s a three-star system for the cups, ranging from 50cc to 150cc, mirroring the Mario Kart formula so closely it’s almost impressive.
🔗 Read more: Amy Rose Sex Doll: What Most People Get Wrong
Why Does Anyone Actually Play This?
It started as a joke. In the mid-2010s, the original Garfield Kart became a "meme game" on Steam. People would write thousands of words of "serious" reviews claiming it was the greatest achievement in human history.
But then something happened.
People started actually playing it. They realized that the drifting mechanic in Garfield Kart: Furious Racing is actually... okay? It’s not Assetto Corsa, obviously. But there is a specific rhythm to the power-sliding that feels rewarding once you get the hang of it.
The competitive community is real. There are Discord servers dedicated to finding the "optimal lines" through tracks like Catz in the Hood. If you look at speedrun.com, you’ll find hundreds of verified runs. People have spent thousands of hours perfecting the art of driving as a cartoon cat.
The Graphics and Performance Gap
Let's talk about the technical side, because this is where the "Garfield Kart 2" experience gets polarizing. If you’re playing on a PC, it looks decent. The colors are vibrant, and the framerate stays steady.
On the Nintendo Switch? It’s a bit of a different story.
💡 You might also like: A Little to the Left Calendar: Why the Daily Tidy is Actually Genius
There are noticeable drops in performance when the screen gets crowded with items. Is it game-breaking? No. Does it add to the "cursed" energy of the game? Absolutely. Most fans would argue that the slight stuttering and the occasional physics glitch are part of the brand. It’s a budget title, and it wears that badge with pride.
The multiplayer is where the game either shines or falls apart. Local split-screen works well and is genuinely fun for a laugh with friends. The online matchmaking, however, can be a ghost town unless you’re coordinating with a group. This isn't a game with a massive concurrent player base at 3:00 AM on a Tuesday.
How to Actually Get Good at This Game
If you’ve decided to unironically try to win, you need to master the boost system. Unlike some racers where you just hold a button, here, the length of your drift directly correlates to the tier of boost you receive.
- The Short Spark: Good for micro-adjustments.
- The Orange Flame: This is your bread and butter.
- The Blue Flame: Hard to hit on tighter tracks without crashing, but essential for long straights.
Character selection matters more than you’d think. Squeak and Nermal have higher acceleration, which is vital because you will get hit by items constantly. Getting back up to speed quickly is usually better than having a higher top speed that you can never actually reach.
The items are mostly clones of what you know. The "Magic Wand" is your homing missile. The "Pie" is your green shell. The "Lasagna" is your mushroom boost. Using the Lasagna at the start of a drift can actually mess up your trajectory, so save it for the exits of corners.
Is It Worth Your Ten Bucks?
Honestly? Yes.
📖 Related: Why This Link to the Past GBA Walkthrough Still Hits Different Decades Later
Not because it's the best racing game ever made. It isn't. But because it provides a specific kind of joy that polished, triple-A games often lack. There is no predatory battle pass. There are no loot boxes. It’s just a weird game about a cat in a car.
In an era where every game wants to be a "service" that you play for the next ten years, Garfield Kart: Furious Racing is just a game you play for an afternoon, laugh at with your roommates, and then keep in your library for whenever you need a hit of pure, unfiltered absurdity.
Moving Forward with Garfield
If you want to dive into the world of Garfield racing, stop looking for "All You Can Drift" and just grab Furious Racing. It's frequently on sale for a few dollars.
To get the most out of it:
- Remap your buttons. The default layout can feel a bit stiff on certain controllers.
- Start with the 100cc cups. 50cc is painfully slow and might make you quit before you see the "good" parts of the tracks.
- Check out the community guides. There are specific shortcuts—especially on the "Malleo's Court" track—that are physically impossible to find unless someone shows you.
- Don't take it seriously. The moment you start getting frustrated that a fictional cat cheated you out of a win with a magic wand is the moment you've lost the plot.
The legacy of these games isn't in their technical prowess. It’s in the fact that they exist at all. They are a testament to the power of the internet to take something mundane and turn it into a cultural touchstone. Whether you're there for the memes or the surprisingly functional drifting, it's an experience every kart-racing fan should try at least once.
Grab some lasagna, pick Jon Arbuckle, and try not to fly off the edge of the world. It’s harder than it looks.