[h1]Overview[/h1]
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[*]Top-down racer with weapons.
[*]There is only 1 mode — Solo career against bots.
[*]Complete races and earn money to buy and upgrade your cars.
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[h1]Art & Graphics ★★★☆☆[/h1]
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[*]The graphics are decent for a UE3 game, but only for the 3D main menu and the garage.
[*]The orbiting planets in the main menu is a really nice touch. The garage is nicely modeled, textured and the lighting looks natural. The 8 cars on display are beautifully-designed with distinct and powerful silhouettes. Car models are sufficiently-detailed, though the way the weapons are mounted look like they were glued on and some even look like they are floating. The concept artist certainly did not study how mechanical joints work.
[*]Having made a decent first impression, it is really disappointing how the in-game environments look like a whole different game. Textures are cut-up photos plastered onto the terrain models. Each map has only a 1-point hard light overhead which casts an ugly and unnatural illumination. The beautiful cars don't look like they belong there at all.
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[h1]Controls & Interface ★★★☆☆[/h1]
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[*]Continuing with the visual critique, the interface for pre-game (menus) and in-game (HUD) are like night and day too.
[*]The graphic style in the menus gives off a modern look. Sharp translucent menu frames are contrasted by bright solid-colored selection highlights and rounded rectangular buttons. The all-caps sans serif font gives off a sci-fi feel which hits the mark.
[*]The HUD, on the other hand, is barebones white text with a drop shadow effect. The font size is hard to read. For some unknown reason, the HUD is split into 2 sections and tucked at the upper left and lower right corners such that your eyes have to diagonally travel the maximum distance across the screen before you can obtain full knowledge of your status.
[*]The controls are customizable in the settings and the defaults are simple enough — Arrow keys to steer, accelerate and reverse. Shift for nitro. Ctrl for front weapon. Alt for rear weapon.
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[h1]Music & Sounds ★☆☆☆☆[/h1]
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[*]The rock genre is fitting for a post-apocalyptic setting, but the selection of songs don't fit the mood of racing. The tempo of the songs' structure is wrong. Races usually start off with a bang. But the songs being played are still barely ramping up in the beginning. When such an audial disconnect happens, music becomes noise.
[*]The sound effects are weak. A car ramming into a concrete wall shouldn't sound like someone knocking on a biscuit tin. There are plenty of stock audio out there and the devs did not put in the effort to make a better selection.
[*]There are no voiceovers too. It doesn't cost much to pay a few people on Fiverr to speak a few lines.
[*]Clearly the devs dropped the ball on sound design and it certainly affects the enjoyability of the game.
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[h1]Plot & Characters ★★☆☆☆[/h1]
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[*]The game has more to say about the world than the characters, and not by much. Short background info for each of the 5 planets giving you an idea of what environments you will race in. The characters are literal nobodies vying to climb to the top and make a name for themselves. You are a nobody too, but at least the game offers you a choice between male or female avatar.
[*]The visual character designs are quite varied, representing the different peoples who live in the 5 habitats. There is a futuristic cowboy who wants to beat you up, a slums punk girl who keeps teasing you, a cybernetic Anubis who is full of honor, and more.
[*]I can't help but feel that the devs dropped the ball once again on character design when these characters could add much more color to a plain racing tournament. It doesn't take much to write character bios and scripted dialog between participants before and after a race.
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[h1]Gameplay ☆☆☆☆☆ 0/5[/h1]
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[*]There is a problem with the collision physics.
[*]Just a slight head/tail bump against another car turns your car 180 to face the opposite direction and instantly makes you last place. This overreaction is way too extreme. But the other car also gets screwed, right? Wrong. The collision physics is rigged such that 9/10 times, the AI continues on its merry way like nothing happened while you receive the full brunt of the impact. This forces a playstyle where you do not try to wrestle a lead but instead maintain safe distancing and either overtake with nitro or shoot them down.
[*]Driving at an angle into a wall stops the car dead in its tracks. Another ridiculous behavior. The car should at least skid along the wall and maintain some of the momentum it has built up. Sometimes, it doesn't even take a wall to do this. Flying off a ramp and landing at too tilted of an angle will root it in place.
[*]Nitro not regenerating is freaking stupid. You have a limited number of shots as determined by your car model and upgrade level and have to rely on nitro pick-ups to get additional speed boosts. Good luck catching up with the first guy because the people in front will have grabbed all of the power-ups available.
[*]Ammo not regenerating (or unlimited but with a cooldown/reload) is stupid too. It feels terrible to pick up a double damage boost when you have zero ammo left.
[*]Restricting you from driving fast or shooting much is equivalent to limiting how much fun you can get from playing a racing battler, which is simply a moronic design decision.
[*]To add salt to the wound, there is no difficulty setting to ease the struggle and get some achievements done.
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[h1]Verdict [/h1]
[quote]This is a game that feels like it was made by 2 teams, one who did the beautiful cars, cool-looking garage and 3D main menu, and another incompetent team who completely messed up the in-game graphics and gameplay. A game that fails in the gameplay department does not deserve to be called a game, so really it is just a car browsing app.[/quote]
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[h1]Tips[/h1]
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[*]You will lose a lot of races in the beginning. Slowly save up for upgrades.
[*]Restart a race if you can't secure the top 3 spots at the start. There is no penalty for restarting and it will even unlock an achievement.
[*]Ammo is cheap, so always go to the garage before a race to max out supplies.
[*]Keep close to the center of the road when driving because power-ups are always located at the center.
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