REVIEW | Gravity Chase

LifeisXbox’s Gravity Chase review | WipeOut, oh boy do I love fast racing moments! That’s where the inspiration for Gravity Chase comes from. Repixel8, an indie game dev studio based in the UK is behind this fast racer. You might know them from Formula Retro Racing, which was another damn fine game from them. Adrenaline and speed are the two main factors for Gravity Chase, making it a fun experience. The complete package feels dangerously basic though.

Most Memorable Moment

Floating on the tubes is really something impressive to see, you can fool around a little and constantly spin around for example. It won’t win you the race but it is funny to see. It is exactly really fun to play with friends, seeing a friend below you or cornering a friend by using gravity remains a cool -did you see that?!- moment! WipeOut fans will really have a great time with this!

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.

What we Liked!

• Lovely pipe-tracks | Tracks are all designed as a pipe, the magnetic vehicles float on the inside or outside. This circular approach gives it a unique twist with racing in 360 degrees. Tracks take place on a few different lush environments, such as a beach, a city in the evening or a Tron-like neon track. There are also a few tracks where the top of the barrel-shaped design is gone, limiting movement and making it more challenging to avoid obstacles. Cumulative points from finishing races will unlock new and more interesting tracks, but it is a bit of a grind to unlock them all. In the end 16 different tracks are available, a healthy number.
  
• Gravity influences your racing vehicles | While you can spiral around the barrel-shaped tracks there’s still gravity in play. This neatly affects the physics so your vehicle starts to shift towards the floor. This is important to consider, especially on higher difficulties. Understanding this mechanic can help with faster times as you can significantly cut with cornering. So there’s a bit of a skill level here but everyone can still enjoy playing it, even casuals. 
  
• Great performance and speed feeling | A deal-breaker for games like this is performance, hiccups are simply not done in this fast racing genre. Luckily for Gravity Chase, the performance is absolutely perfect, even with insane high speeds and the vehicle spinning all over the place. About that insane speed, the adrenaline you get from dodging red zone obstacles and nailing a corner is very well done thanks to the realistic speed-feeling. 
  
• Time to invite your friends for a race and dance party | Splitscreen racing is a great way of having fun with friends, Gravity Chase isn’t an exception. Progress is constantly tracked between players so if you play multiple rounds you know who’s the best player overall. Another reason why this game can be a good party is the great selection of electronic music, it really gets the blood pumping.

Mixed Feelings

• Three different modes but they feel similar | You have arcade, elimination and a combat mode where you can shoot at other racers. I think the names speak for themselves, there ain’t a sniff originality to be found here. It all comes down to the same thing anyway, like in the Flash. Run Barry, run! In Gravity Chase it is drive faster Dae Jim, faster! Combat in this game feels like an afterthought too. Like they still had some time and budget left for a mediocre way of doing combat. There’s zero hit detection for example, making it really annoying to defend yourself with a shield. Ammo and shield pickups appear on the tracks, and shooting at other drivers is done automatically.

What we Disliked

• Obstacles don’t always work as intended | Each track has red zones that you should avoid. It works as following, if your vehicle touches a part of the red zone it immediately starts to slow down. Most of the time things go as planned but sometimes nothing happens when you touch them or the speed drop is ridiculously heavy, much more than usual. Another thing I absolutely hate is that the AI drivers don’t have any effect from the red zones talking about an unfair advantage…

How long to beat the story | There is none
How long to achieve 1000G | Six hours

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