REVIEW – While I could be done with this review by saying „lol, WipEout light,” it wouldn’t be useful (although we should do something like that once), but that was my first thought when I booted up Antigraviator. Of course, the game was way more than that, and although it’s not an outstanding product, I think it’s still a decent game.

 

The futuristic racing genre isn’t as prominent as it was two decades ago with franchises like F-Zero or WipEout / Rollcage on Nintendo’s and Sony’s consoles, respectively. A few years ago, I was playing the beta of Quantum Rush on PC a few years ago, and it was similar. However, they took a turn away from the original style. Antigraviator might feel a little like Mario Kart here and there; it seems capable of filling the gap on PC.

Circle

A little less than two months after the original release, I played the 1.1 version of the game, which, surprisingly, launched with Hungarian subtitles, and not just some machine-translated crapfest but seemingly proper translation. The campaign mode of the game feels a little too minimalistic, but it does its job as much as it can: eight championships, four races each, and you open the higher ones by the money you gain in the previous championship(s). There’s no story in Antigraviator. Instead, you can look at the futuristic vehicles called Gravs, and you can drive them on at least fifteen stages and their respective reversed versions.

There are a few game modes to dive into: Singles is just your regular race, Countdown feels like a classic, arcade experience where you have to race to the next checkpoint to continue, and Deathrace has a sudden death approach. The patch brought in a new mode called Pure, which drops all boost pads and traps, emphasizing just pure speed and racing.

Lap

The game’s traps feel a little weird, but they work – if you want to dump a ton of stones on someone, you can do that. If someone else does it to you (even online!), you can avoid them by doing barrel rolls, which also could be utilised to knock other racers out. The boost pads scattered around the circuit will give you a speed boost, but it should also make you more focused on braking because you’ll have to slow down your Grav here and there to take some tight turns.

I haven’t described yet that how speedy Antigraviator is – Cybernetic Walrus seems to have tried making the players drive as tight as possible to get their Grav to first place. Unfortunately, there’s no first-person camera view. Instead, you get two rear views (one of them came with a patch), but I liked how the HUD was slapped on the rear of the Grav. It’s a neat idea in my opinion.

Cage

Antigraviator‘s issue lies in how you have to go through the championships in one sitting to get the credits, which means you must grind. Sure, you can upgrade the Gravs (shield, drive, wings) to improve its performance in several aspects (acceleration, handling, strength, the time length of the shield, energy capacity), but you will need patience for this game.

You have to learn the hard way on how to take turns and adequately avoid/dodge the traps. Thankfully, the developers created acceptable visuals for the game, but I have to talk about the audio, too. The music is especially fitting the genre, and although the title theme sounds minimalistic, it builds ambience nicely.

WipEout replacement

As the game was announced as a multiplatform release with a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox One port, this review is meant to be the basis of Antigraviator‘s console version. If it had more Gravs and less grinding than what it has, and maybe if the game has a decent frame rate, it could get an 8 out of 10. However, currently, it only gets a 7 – it’s not bad, but you can get bored of it. Play Cybernetic Walrus‘ game in small doses. It’s not a WipEout, but you can have a lot of fun with it. It should have tried to take a detour from the usual things seen in futuristic games, but it’s still an enjoyable „meal to eat” on PC.

-V-

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Publisher: Iceberg Interactive

Developer: Cybernetic Walrus

Genre: sci-fi racing

Relase date: June 6, 2018 (PC), 2018. ??. ?? (PlayStation 4, Xbox One)