Game Info: DriftForce

Developed By: Greyish Games

Published By: Greyish Games

Released: April 16, 2019

Available On: Windows

Genre: Endless racer

ESRB Rating: N/A

Number of Players: Single-player

Price: $5 DriftForce is a zero-gravity infinite runner that requires tight precision and careful maneuvers. Greyish Games’ debut title is exactly what I wanted it to be – simple, tight, and addictive. I tend to not go out of my way to play through games that don’t do much that’s new or interesting, but DriftForce executes the infinite runner formula better than most PC runners I’ve played. The core appeal, or core problem, with DriftForce is the vehicle itself. You control an anti-gravity ship that naturally slips and slides as if it’s on ice since it uses powerful boosters to maneuver. Learning how to drive arguably makes up the major part of the game’s difficulty. It takes a complex control scheme requiring both analog sticks on a controller to smoothly turn corners and dodge obstacles. The left analog is your standard movement that pushes the ship to drift right or left, and the right analog lets you make subtle strafing movements. You have no control over the speed of the ship aside from a boost button and a lack of brakes. Mastering the controls is challenging yet very satisfying.

Highlights: Strong Points: Impressive visuals; addicting gameplay; great game feel

Weak Points: Repetitive soundtrack; occasional poor obstacle placement; can get repetitive

Moral Warnings: Ship explodes into pieces when crashing

The goal of the game is to get as far as possible in either a randomly generated map or a choice of 9 preset maps. There are two different types of orbs scattered throughout each track: a yellow orb that gives you 500 points and a green orb that fills up your boost meter and gives you 1000 points. Simply surviving for a long time will not get you any score, and your only means of boosting your score is by collecting these orbs. They are often placed in locations that are risky to get to; where making a mistake usually leads to an explosive death. The track design is built around precise movement. Blocks are placed all over the place with ramps in between and gates to go through. The margin for error gets increasingly tight as the road gets thinner and more filled with traps. One of my only issues with DriftForce is that despite using preset layouts stacked onto each other, there are many situations that don’t seem possible to sightread and prepare for. Sometimes I'd take a jump only to be met with a wall that I don’t have time to react to. Certain combinations of patterns make for extremely tight level design while other times I can get through an entire area without any issues. The sightread issue is mostly to do with the randomly generated modes, but it is plenty possible to at least memorize the seeded maps. DriftForce is brutal due to the track design combined with the ship movement.