First Look PC #8

Victory Heat Rally by Skydevilpalm (202?) - PC

As someone for whom retro games hold great value, one of the best things about the indie scene for a good few years now is the number of 'homages', or games inspired by other famous old games. There are tons and more turn up seemingly on a weekly basis. This one caught my eye quite a while ago (I believe it has been in my 'games to review' folder for about two years now) as it initially looked to be a Mario Kart-inspired racer. Upon playing it, however, I soon realised it has much more in common with Power Drift and even Out Run 2! There is only a demo so far in which you can choose between two racers and then race over three courses, and it's these that remind me so much of Sega's buggy racer as they are twisty-turny with sharp turns and elevated sections, just like AM2's classic!

That's just the courses though. The actual racing and control over your car and all that stuff is where the Out Run 2 influence comes from thanks to the mandatory drifting. Indeed, pretty much every corner must be drifted around (in the dramatic fashion shown to the right here), and the end of each drift is met with a brief boost, with the duration depending on the length of the drift. Luckily, much like Out Run 2, drifting is easy to perform and control so you can concentrate on catching and overtaking the other racers (you start at the back, obviously). It's quite a challenge to win a race but the action is fact, exciting, and great fun, so I'm looking forward to playing the full game. The question is: when will we see it? Even though I downloaded this demo so long ago that I forgot about it, the game still hasn't been released. Any time you're ready, Skydevilpalm...

RKS Score: 4/5

Here's a trailer for this tough little racer. If you like the look of it, find out more at the developers website here, or you can wishlist it at Steam here. The demo can be downloaded from either site.