AG Drive Review

Wondered what futuristic street-racing looks like? Check out AG Drive.

It’s the future — 2260 to be more exact — and “anti-gravity” drive-powered machines are all the rage. Fantastic spacecraft fill the air, interstellar travel is commonplace, and everything is done at a brisk pace.

Racing has also evolved, and as to be expected, the new drives are at the root of it. Spurred on by the craziest, windiest race tracks imaginable, we get the backing story for AG Drive.

And the environments in the game help define it a great deal. The graphics are slick, but stop short of being pretentious, and the vehicles characterized therein look realistically futuristic. The animations are vivid, and the laws of physics are not overly disrespected in the name of action.

And the one thing this game lives for is to portray action. It has a built-in tutorial that guides newbies along the path of understanding the gameplay, which, in essence, boils down to going as fast as possible. At the beginning, you’re given a starter craft. There are a couple different race modes, some shorter in length, and some that are longer (and can be repeated); there are speed trials, duels, cup challenges and more. Doing well (like coming in at a certain position or time threshold) generally yields goodies like points and game currency.

The points help with leveling, and the game cash can be used to purchase better vehicles and/or vehicle upgrades. Such upgrades become practically invaluable as one progresses.

The racing is quite addictive. If one unconsciously invokes WipeOut, that’s okay, as the touch reactions almost beg for it. With tracks that loop, bend and do almost everything short of turning completely upside down, it takes a bit of getting used to using the accelerometer, and virtual buttons to control the racer. On the track, there are boosts to be collected; these help expedite the charging of the turbo boost, which is a temporary advantage. Being too aggressive or conservative has positives and negatives, and the developer does a good job of using coloring to highlight different environments.

I would really, really have loved online or local multiplayer; the game almost begs to be played and bragged about head-to-head. Also, a few more arcade-ish boosts would probably be in order.

All in all, it’s a fun game that is more than a little addictive.