Developer: QubicGames
Genre: Airship Time Trials
Players: 1
Console: 3DS eShop
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Launch Price: $4.99
Progress: Passed the first 14/18 levels in 51 minutes
With Nintendo’s eShop getting increasingly popular on both the 3DS and Wii U there are more developers than ever scrambling to get a piece of the potential revenue pie. Amongst these hoards of new developers are a few mainstays who have stuck by Nintendo’s online distribution platforms for better or worse and one such developer is QubicGames. Having made games for WiiWare and DSiWare in the past they recently made their 3DS eShop debut with the third entry in their AiRace series, AiRace Speed. Surely with such a long history developing original downloadable games for Nintendo platforms their latest offering would be worth at least a cursory glance… or would it? Read on to find out what we thought of our less-than-one-hour of gameplay playthrough of AiRace Speed.
I had not really heard of the AiRace series or QubicGames before they contacted us offering a copy of AiRace Speed for review, but the screenshots made it look enough like an F-Zero or Extreme-G deal that it piqued my interest. As soon as you boot up the game you’re greeted by a super-slick intro video (that is unfortunately not in 3D) and then the bubble more or less pops and you’re left with an almost tech-demo level of a game for your $5. You could say that no one should expect much game for $5, even in a world where that buys you most of the Angry Birds games on your smartphone, but even on the eShop there are plenty of very worthwhile (read: better) games for $5 or less including: Cut the Rope, Sonic the Hedgehog (GameGear), Pac-Man, Mega Man 1-6, Wario Land 2-3 and many more Virtual Console games.
The main menu is unfortunately where the game’s outdated, tacky and downright cheap nature begins to rear its terribly unsightly head. From the fonts to the music to the sound effects this game looks more like a school project than something put out by a serious indie team. (In fact far superior games like Alientrap’s Capsized have indeed been made initially as school projects). The sound effects are particularly egregious, obviously taken from some royalty-free sound effects website, and include the likes of a cork-popping noise for passing through checkpoints, the 24 TV series clock noise for the beginning timer, a generic orchestra hit at the end of levels and a harp chord (yes, in a sci-fi “racing” game) when you get an achievement or lap record or something. The music follows suit with nothing but indistinguishable soulless midi-quality techno tracks.
But the game looks pretty decent so I can just play with the sound off, right? Well, you can indeed just turn the sound off, and it would definitely be recommended if for some strange reason you purchase this thing after my warnings, but the graphics aren’t so hot in motion. AiRace Speed essentially looks like it would have no problem running on a DSi, or a PS1 for that matter. The textures, while boring, are not even of a decent resolution and the levels consist largely of bland tubes that you fly through which occasionally broaden into completely lifeless and usually unanimated slightly wider corridors. An example of the myriad missed opportunities in this regard is the one level where for a moment you fly through an area housing Soviet-style rocket ships. Are these rocket ships about to blast off? Do you have to weave carefully through them to survive? Is there any movement in their vicinity at all? The answer of course to all of these questions is, “Of course not, that would require money, time, and creativity!” This is certainly one game that can’t make it by on its looks, but is its gameplay any better?
Nope, not really. AiRace Speed‘s gameplay is more-or-less as pedestrian as it gets flying a grand total of 5 un-chooseable ships through up to 18 samey tunnels. AiRace Speed, in spite of its name, isn’t even a racing game; it’s just a collection of predestined time trials with (don’t hold your breath)… online leaberboards. Woo. If this entire game was a single mode in a much larger and more robust racing game with the same settings/tracks it would be perhaps a tad more interesting, but as it stands exposed by itself paling so greatly in comparison to basically every other $5 game on the 3DS eShop it’s just mostly sad.
(all scores out of 10)
[taq_review]
A download code for the game was provided to us by its publishers.