Inertial Drift, developed by Level 91 Entertainment, and published by PQube is an arcade racer, but more than that, it’s a refreshing take, one that breathes new life into the genre. Like most racers of this ilk, it features a selection of vehicle options that are tied to the difficulty level, and with this game, in the story at least, there are initially three drivers available for you to assume, these being Edward, Ada, and Ibba (with Viv unlockable upon completion). Each of these drivers feature a different model of vehicle with varying acceleration, handling, and top speed. Picking one of these begins the story mode, and from there you will face off against a cast of other characters and perform a set of challenges on each course.
The courses are very well designed and fun to drive through, with a nice variety of locales, featuring fast straights, sweeping curves, and hairpin turns, all of which combine to create an exciting experience. Challenges for each setting consist of a handful of events, ranging from practice runs, time attacks, ghost battles, duels, style drives, and standard races. Each of these are fun in their own right and provide a decent amount of challenge and diversity, but by their very nature, they make the courses feel quite repetitive. Most of the events have you performing three laps, and with three challenges per track, you could be racing around the same course as many as nine times in one go, more if you want to practice first. This is only a slight issue though as the longest track is only about four or five minutes long. Additional events are available outside of the story in the challenge and arcade modes however, and these provide much more variety, as the tracks are reused in different ways, either by being mirrored, cut up, or repurposed. This approach is also carried into the Grand Prix option, which adds a great amount of replayability to the game, allowing for you to take on a greater variety of track variants using the vehicles you have unlocked, of which there are lots.
The courses and vehicles aren’t this game’s selling point however, despite being well designed in and of themselves. What makes Inertial Drift so unique, is its unique twin stick driving mechanic which allows for you to drift around the tracks at breakneck speed. Initially I found this quite off-putting, and not picking the easiest difficulty first had me quite frustrated. After switching to the starter vehicle and getting to grips with the controls however, the game opened up, and its mechanics came alive. The left stick is used to adjust your steering, but is standardly almost imperceptible, and this is, at least at first, quite unintuitive. Used in combination with your drift (right) stick however, and it allows you to glide around corners majestically, and combining the two, in conjunction with well-timed breaking will give you full command over your vehicle. The difficulty between vehicles is focused on this, and drifting becomes much harder with the faster cars, and getting good at each requires quite a bit of effort on the part of the player.
If you can master the controls enough to appreciate the visuals of the game, you’ll be well rewarded by this too. The game brings to mind the likes of Ridge Racer Type 4 in terms of its sound design and track types, and visually it resembles Auto Modellista with its cartoonish looks, and if you can take your eye off the road for a moment, you might think you’re driving through the streets of Crackdown’s Pacific City, which I think would be a good crossover…
With its impressive visuals, unique mechanics, well designed tracks, fully loaded challenges, and evocative soundtrack, Inertial Drift seems to tick every box. The only downside, at least for me, was the utterly uninteresting cast of characters, and their kind of whiny or annoying dialogue. After a while, I was skipping every line I could, and I’d probably recommend you do the same. There is a reason most racing games don’t focus on the drivers, as almost every game that does just highlights how tiresome they are. Just focus on the driving, and a good time will be had.
Beyond the actual mechanics of play, the game also features split screen and online play, the former of which is an incredibly welcome addition, as too many games shy away from couch co-op these days - a well-deserved round of applause for that. The options menu is also good, offering a great feature which allows for the altering of each sound effect. I utilised this to silence the tyre squeal, which meant that my wife didn’t have to murder me…
Have you given this one a go? It’s nice to play a driving game with a new spin on things, and the fact that they found a new way to go with racing is quite impressive!
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Jamie B