It’s around 10 pm. I’m trawling the YouTubes. All of a sudden, I come across this:
I don’t even know what to say, really.
You know those games that just come along, out of the blue, and just seem tailor-made for you? Xenon Racer is one of those games.
PERFECT 10s is a series I’m starting that shines a spotlight on Arcade Racing games that are, in my opinion, among the best the genre has to offer. I will not be judging these games in comparison to others in the genre – they come in far too many varieties.
Some of the greats have only a handful of cars and tracks, whilst others are heavier on the content. A flaw or two aside, the games featured in PERFECT 10s are games of astounding quality that you can safely tuck into, knowing you’re in for an absolute treat. Expect some anecdotes, plenty of screenshots and my preferred method of playing these games in 2018.
I’m not the usual retro-gamer. I love, love LOVE my original hardware, and in most cases that’s where I go to play the games in my collection. Some systems though? I’ve gotta be honest – I prefer to emulate them.
The PSP is one such system.
If there were any game that I was most looking forward to all year, its most definitely UFO Interactive and Saint-Fun’s FAST BEAT LOOP RACER GT for the PC.
News of its arrival a few months back quite literally came out of nowhere. Arcade Racer’s such as LOOP RACER GT seeing release are a rarity these days. And on PC? Crazy talk! But I knew it would be a day one purchase for me.
I haven’t played a whole lot of the Wangan Midnight series, which is LOOP RACER GT’s closest point of comparison, but what I have played (on the PS2), I really, really loved. LOOP RACER GT is a port of an obscure Chinese arcade racing game that some may call a Wangan Midnight clone, but I think it’s more than just a clone. It’s definitely in the same pocket, though. On the same side of the leg, even.
This one has been a long time coming.
I found Horizon Chase enjoyable enough on my Android phone, I really did. But the minute there was news of this coming to PC and Consoles, I stopped playing. I tried getting my controller to work with the Android version, but never had much luck. And I really didn’t want to use the touch-screen to play. It was fine, honestly, but my memories of the raster-racers Horizon Chase was paying homage to was with a controller in my hand, not tap-tap-tapping on a touch-screen.
So I made a deal with myself.
As much as I wanted to dive in, I was going to wait it out.
I’ve written about Noctet Studio’s Slipstream before.
A Kickstarter success, Slipstream sold potential backers with an early, but promising demo that showed an Arcade Racer cribbing from the 2D greats of the genre.
And whilst the development of the game has seen its ups and downs, I was really happy with the progress the game had made from that initial demo to the last build. There were still a few glaring issues that I found really stopped me from enjoying the game to the extent that I wanted to, but I was liking it a lot.
But now?
Well, well, well.
I’ll get to the Tutorial in a second, but I’ve really got to go into what inspired this post in the first place.
So, I finally sat down and went through DeviantArt ICON (ha!) POOTERMAN’s gallery. I’ve been meaning to download all of the icons he’s made to replace my own for a while now, and being laid up with a bad back today was the perfect excuse to get cracking and just do it.
2 for $20 – a price that’s hard to beat, and for me, definitely within the realm of an impulse purchase. While waiting around in a plaza recently, I wandered into EB Games (the GameStop of Australia, pretty much) to kill some time. I did my usual thing. Stared at all the overpriced Nintendo Switch games, checked out all the games I’m not missing on the Xbox One and PS4 and then, finally, made my way over to the PC section.
Now, I try to avoid EB Games as a rule these days. I don’t like them, I don’t like their business practices and I find up-selling abhorrent. I’ll never buy my big-ticket gaming items from them, because they don’t deserve the bulk of my business. But resolve isn’t my strongest attribute, and the staff are usually really nice. Besides, who’s going to knock back a decent bargain every now and then? Like a 2 for $20 thing. Not me, not I.
So whilst browsing, Moto Racer 4 and Trackmania Turbo caught my eye immediately. I did have Trackmania Turbo on my Xbox One before I sold it off, but I’ve given Moto Racer 4 a fairly wide berth. It never did look like the Moto Racer games I grew up with, and nothing I saw of it really convinced me that I needed the game. Still, with the low price both games were commanding, I couldn’t resist.
Welcome to A Certain Kind of Gamer – PICK UPS AND PLAY EDITION.
Real, legit arcade racing action on Steam? You betcha! And it’s out in a couple of weeks? SOLD! I saw news of FAST BEAT LOOP RACER GT pop up on a Discord server a few days ago, and I just had to share it with you lot!
But before we get to that, just a quick PSA – I’ve updated the ACKoG Jukebox! Pure Video Game Music goodness. From Classical to 90s Techno, J-Rock to 80s Slow Jams – I’ve got you covered!
Here’s the full track list with the Track Name // Artist/Composer // Video Game:
I’m not a peripherals kinda dude. I hate when people bang on about the one true way of playing things. Keyboard warriors shun those who prefer game-pads. People who prefer game-pads knock people who like anything else. Worst of all are racing game enthusiast who refuse to take players who use anything but a wheel seriously.
Not every occasion calls for a wheel. Or a game-pad. Or even a Keyboard and Mouse. Variety is the fucking spice of life, you guys!
Peripherals are just that – they’re extra options for those who choose to invest further into their hobby.
I recently made such an investment, and I told you guys about that in this post right here. Read More →
