Gravity Chase | Xbox Review

I think spiritual successors are fascinating. It’s not uncommon for a once wildly popular game franchise to suddenly lie dormant and never to be heard from again. There are plenty of reasons for this: poor critical reception, lackluster sales, lack of innovation, a botched launch, this list goes on. This leaves the door wide open for an ambitious indie developer or a mid-tier studio to produce a game that’s similar in every way except the name. Cities Skylines is a perfect example of this, becoming the new premier city builder after the latest SimCity release failed to live up to expectations. Developed and published by Repixel8, Gravity Chase is a decent (yet barebones) racer that attempts to carry on the legacy of such classics as F-Zero and Wipeout. 

Zoom, Zoom

Gravity Chase is a fast-paced, arcade-style racer where you control zero G racecrafts on courses that can best be described as pipes. The game features three different race modes including a standard race, combat race, and an elimination mode. You have a choice of ten different crafts each with their own design and stats such as handling, armor, and top speed. All of which can be upgraded using points and money earned from finishing races. 

Each game mode has three difficulty settings and I must say, playing any mode on the hardest difficulty is a challenge. The gravitational pull has a greater effect when on higher difficulties, making it possible to oversteer while inside the tunnel and then you’re suddenly spiraling out of control. For those who are sensitive to motion sickness beware.

Gotta Go Fast

Race mode is just as it sounds, the objective is to get to first place, leaving your opponents in the wind. Combat race adds weapons and armor pickups into the mix as you can now destroy any opponent in front of you with an easy to use auto targeting system. But beware, since this also means the AI opponents can easily target you too, so stay on top of armor and health pickups. Finally with elimination mode, it’s a last man standing race where the racer in last place gets disqualified every 30 seconds or so. 

Each track is peppered with colored pads you can fly over along with various pickups. Blue pads will give you a temporary speed boost, while running over red pads will slow you down. Hitting boost pads and obtaining boost pickup icons is crucial in maintaining speed and momentum for overtaking your opponents. Doing this can actually be tough as, for some reason, the game likes to put blue pads only inches away from red pads. This forces you to take advantage of the full 360 degree tracks and attempt to hit these pads from the side rather than head on. Everything that Gravity Chase has to offer is all stuff we’ve seen before, either in racing games as of late or games of the time period it’s emulating.

 Boogie In Zero Gravity

There are approximately 16 different race courses, each with their own background environments; such as tropical islands, a futuristic metropolis and others. But the background environments are just that…backgrounds. Because you’ll be racing either inside or outside tubes adorned with streaks of light at breakneck speeds, you won’t even have time to admire the scenery. This also means that there’s no need to concern yourself with any environmental hazards or obstacles; no sharp hairpin corners in city streets and no gaps in the road that could potentially knock you off course. Since Gravity Chase is a budget title aimed for last generation hardware, the frame rate caps at 30fps and runs effortlessly on a Series X.

The music and sound design is serviceable at best. You’ll mostly be hearing the futuristic whooshing noises of your anti-Gravity crafts with some unintrusive synthwave pop for background music. In fact, the music used on the title screen sounds very similar to “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd.

The Wrap Up

All In all, this is a fun little game that’s worth your time. While it may be lacking in content and certainly won’t provide a deep and rich experience, its best strengths are played in short bursts, much like an arcade game. For the price of about two frappuccinos, you’ll have a decent time with Gravity Chase without breaking the bank.

I applaud Repixel8 for making a fun nostalgic racing game such as this, as apparently the studio is predominantly operated by one man. That means everything you see and hear in this game was done by one lone talented game designer, and for that I recommend checking this game out for yourself.

This review is based on a purchased copy of Gravity Chase. It is also available on PC via Steam.