Developer: Holy Warp, Black Wing Foundation
Publisher: KISS ltd, Holy Warp
Platforms: PC, iOS
Speed Kills – Review
Holy Warp and Black Wing Foundation released Speed Kills in February 2013 for the iOS. Now in 2014, they released it for the PC. Speed Kills is an action-packed death racing game, set in the 31st century. The gameplay is classic and is inspired by the 16-bit racing game, including Rock ‘n Roll Racing.
Story
You can’t really say there is a storyline in Speed Kills but you are a driver that is traveling the galaxy, visiting different planets and entering tournaments on said planets. Each planet has their own champion which you will need to beat to ultimately become the champion of every realm. These champions are so distinctive in style and have plenty of things to say between races, which is truly about the only type of story that you will see.
Graphics
The visuals used in Speed Kills are great, while not extremely realistic. Every world has their own type of nature and usage of materials which truly gives you a sense of visiting a completely different planet. Since the tournaments and planets require a specific vehicle class, you will not get bored of seeing the same car flashing by time and time again. Using the speed boost will give you a clear sense of speed as everything becomes slightly blurred. The menu itself is simplistic but since you won’t be spending a lot of time in there, the simplicity of it can be overlooked.
Sound
Get in touch with the destructive brute inside of you as you race through the tracks with Electronic Rock in the background. The soundtrack, featuring 10 tracks, is available on Soundcloud. Overall, the music is good and fits the death racing theme the game has but the voiceless songs tend to be repetitive after a while.
Gameplay
Speed Kills is a mixture of Mini Motor Racing EVO and Carmageddon with influences gained from the classic 16-bit isometric racing games such as Rock ‘n Roll Racing. The goal of the game is to win the race while taking out your opponents by shooting them, letting them slip over oil pools or have them explode on your mines. There are three classes of vehicles, the monster trucks, the sports cars and the antigravs which are hovercrafts. Every vehicle will have pre-installed front and rear weapons which you can later upgrade to hold more ammo. The fact that you cannot choose what type of weapons you want for your car, makes it less of a death racing game. Your choice is quite limited by having only eight vehicles to pick from.
The AI will give you some trouble at first as they have their own type of weaponry and are not afraid to use it. Blocking your car or hitting it in the tail to make it go spinning out of control is something they love to do as well. However, no matter how well done the AI is at first, once you have upgraded your car, they are less worthy opponents. There are several boosts laid out on the track. These can be any types of boosts, from a speed boost to ammo clips to extra cash. Unfortunately, these are mostly in the middle of the track which means that the leader will pick these up. Leaving the ones in its tail without any juice. However, with your upgrades, you will become the leader faster and accompanied with these boosts, you are pretty much unstoppable and won’t have to deal with any vehicles for a while. Quite a few races in the game only have two laps while three laps is the most common in racing games. Two laps are over quite fast, especially when the tracks are not extremely lengthy and it feels wrong in a racing game. Other worlds have three laps which feels more familiar and is also more enjoyable to play as you stand a better chance of making a comeback after a terrible mistake.
While there is controller support, most of the menu is not accessible with the controller and requires a keyboard to use. There is also no way to see what buttons do what, which requires you to smash buttons and see what would happen. Secondly, there is no mini map in the game that shows you the entire track. Instead, right before each turn, the angle and direction of the turn will be shown on the road itself. This can be okay but it is rather difficult to predict when to use your nitro boost or even your secondary weapons. Another iffy point is that there is no multiplayer available for Speed Kills yet but the developers are planning to patch the game in the near future, hopefully containing at least a local multiplayer.
Conclusion
Speed Kills should be an action-packed racing game but with the lack of several features such as online multiplayer and switchable weapons, the game feels less and less like a true death racing game. The graphics are truly amazing and the speed is clearly visible. Replayability in the game is far fatched as there are only eight vehicles to buy and upgrade. You can replay the worlds, especially since the tracks are so small, to gain more money to upgrade your ride but that’s about all. Fans of the death racing genre and concept will have at least a few hours of gameplay with Speed Kills, possibly longer once they’ve patched in multiplayer mode.
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