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Ignite
There are countless arcade racers on the
market at the moment, most taking slightly different approaches. Just a
Game have taken a very pick up and play approach that works well with
the arcade feel and budget price tag. There is no story here, you
choose a race, choose a car and start the race, there is no tweaking of
spring rates, ride height or brake bias, none of this at all. You have
a purely arcade experience with a simple physics engine and feel.
Most
of the time will probably be spent in Campaign mode, this is a basic
move from one race to another, for no more reason than that is the next
race, and you may unlock a new paint job, or car and of course the next
race. This is refreshing in modern arcade racers with some feeling as
though they have to really justify each race, when most people playing
are simply playing just to race. The different races types are all
pretty samey and don’t really influence how you are racing.
There
is something particularly unique about Ignite; each race has a points
system that allows players to win races different ways. Players get
points for drifting, hitting objects, drafting and leading the race.
Players lose points for hitting walls and using nitrous. At the end of
each race these points are used to take time away from the race time,
potentially allowing players move up positions, theoretically allowing a
win through drifting. Unfortunately this does not work too well in
practice, it is incredibly difficult to win through any other means than
through finishing the race first due to the minor amount of time that is
taken off from points. This is an excellent concept and if finetuned
could really lead to some interesting racing, it is just not quite there
yet.
The
racing itself has a suitably arcade feel, cars drift for no apparent
reason and the handling is easy for virtually anyone to pick up and be
relatively competitive. There are some minor annoyances though, If the
cars hit an inside wall while drifting I found they tend to get stuck at
90 degrees and stop dead. This lead to some very frustrating racing but
this was rare and only seemed to be an issue in the muscle cars. The
second gripe is when trying to navigate slow corners the handling seems
to fall apart, they understeer horrendously and really slows down the
pace of the game. These are minor niggles that occasionally are
annoying, but for a budget title these can be overlooked.
The
graphics seem to be a case of you get what you pay for, they are not
going to compete with any of the high end racing games but they do the
job. The cars look decent, no official vehicles here, but the models
are decent, again, for what the game costs these are pretty good. The
tracks can all be a bit samey, and the surrounding textures are also
pretty average. The look is all a bit outdated, but this ultimately
won’t take away from the experience. The game has a very simple menu
system that gets you from go to woe quickly and there is no fiddling, it
looks simple but it does exactly what is supposed to hassle free.
The
sound is so-so, the cars for the most part don’t really sound all that
much difference from one another, and collisions don’t sound beefy. I
did think the nitrous effect sounded pretty good, but other than that
there is nothing particularly noteworthy about the sound.
Overall this is sort of a case of you get what you pay for, this is an
excellent budget title but it won’t hold up to well against an A grade
title with regards to graphics and sound. What this does offer is a
complete trouble free and simple arcade racer that offers a unique game
play mechanic, if you are looking for a pick up and play arcade racer
and don’t want to pay for a full price game then this is definitely
worth a look and will pass several hours of your time. This is just
racing, nothing more, nothing less. |
