Race the Sun – Review
A couple of weeks back I got the preview of this game. This game doesn’t draw strength from its graphics, but from gameplay elements. The preview can be read by clicking here.
Story
The story hasn’t changed from the preview, so you are still the same unmanned aircraft, racing towards the horizon. At least I hope its unmanned, because the amount of times you’ll crash will make for a rather bitter tang to your gameplay experience as you realize how many foolhardy individuals you let explode.
Graphics
I was a little confused on this one. When you start the game up you have a couple of options on the graphic settings. It goes from like this: Fastest, simple, good, beautiful, fantastic.
I don’t quite get the difference between them, because it didn’t alter anything at all. All the graphics settings let you see the wing badges. All moving blocks are red and everything else, apart from the upgrades is grey, the shadows they cast, are black. It makes for a world where things are quite visible and as non-distracting as possible. With your craft flying at break neck speeds and blocks moving in all directions, you’ll need to be able to focus. The lack of colors lets you do just that. In the player created worlds, it’s a whole other story. The player created worlds are often a setting of bright lights and lots of colors. Adding a unique feel to them.
Sound
Not much has changed from the preview on this part either, however from region 4 on the melody starts to grow more bombastic, to show that the ante has been upped. There’s no voice acting, but what comes close is the little bleep your aircraft emits once it’s in danger of losing power. It’s not an overly loud warning, but it does give you an extra boost of alertness to your surroundings and where to find sunlight.
Gameplay
There’s a button on the left hand side which caught me off guard while I was checking which settings could be altered in the options menu. ‘Brass Monkey’app lets you use your mobile device as a controller. I’m amazed by this app. It’s EXTREMELY reactive and adds another layer of immersion. I was a little skeptic on how well it’d connect and how reactive it was, but it is amazingly well done. I found it a way of playing, but I didn’t quite get the hang of it, having played mostly with the keys. Kudos to the creators of the app and the functionality it creates.
The game has become more difficult from region 4 onward.
The first region lets you get used to things, you’ll be able to slide through this in no time at all. The second region isn’t really all the more difficult. In the third region is where things start to get interesting. Blocks will start moving, and you’ll sometimes have to predict movements just to escape an impact. In the fourth region, more things will move, and rockets will start being shot up. Though this is just a graphical thing, later on, in the fifth region, is where I got bombarded by things. Falling blocks, moving blocks, blocks moving only in the last possible second. There were alien spaceships patrolling the ground and mother ships hovering in the skies shooting laser beams down. Then the rockets exploded and things really went ballistic. You see, the explosion itself doesn’t give you an immediate game over. It’s just blinds you and causes you to lose sight of the field often resulting into a collision. The best strategy is to steer clear away from these, or hope you have an emergency teleport when you do get caught up in one.
I leveled up from 10-25 in the course of 4 hours. The upgrades I had acquired in the first few levels from the preview got upgraded further. The magnet got stronger, the shield upgrade gave me the possibility to stock up on 3 emergency teleports. I could stock up on 3 jumps. My multiplier started at level 5 when I started a new game. A little disappointment was the final upgrade. I could survive in the shadows a little longer. The upgrade I hadn’t used, was given an upgrade. It’s possibly useful later on, but if you are in the shadows chances are the sun will be so low, you’ll need multiple sunlight power-ups to get out of the jam. Seeing as most of these are sparse, I’d doubt it’d help you that much. After you’ve accumulated maximum level, there’s a chance for you to test out your strength on the leader boards. These get reset every day –so do the levels-, and give you a chance to retry every 24 hours. If you are to grow bored of that you can always build some custom maps, and get those rated. You can basically change EVERYTHING, the size of objects, how they move, how high up they are. You can choose which objects get what color. You want a grey sun? Or maybe tint of green on the ground? Flashing moving objects? Queerly moving death traps? The sky is the limit, and the horizon the goal.
Conclusion:
The game is still as addictive as it was during the preview. With player worlds for you to discover and a world creator which lets you delve into your own imagination and your deviousness to create regions with obstacles in any shape and form, there’s a lot of gameplay for you to enjoy. A simple game, graphically, yet pleasing to the eyes of the gamer. The mobile app makes gives this game some extra replay value and a way for you to hone your skills.
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