Skyreach

Although you might assume there’s not much left to innovate when it comes to racing games, the truth is that there’s always something one change, not to mention all the things that can be added. Not just that, but genre mixing is quite popular as well, which opens up an even larger palette of possibilities when it comes to gameplay mechanics.

Skyreach is not your typical racing game, but it’s not exactly a revelation in the genre either. In short, the main idea is that you are free to build the track as you go along, making it more of an exploration game than anything else. Unfortunately, it has a few flaws that make the experience a tad too annoying to be enjoyable, especially if you go in expecting speed and actual driving.

To begin with, the action takes place in some kind of great desert, although you are actually racing between floating islands. The fact that there’s no ground means that you have to place each piece of the track as you go, otherwise you fall to your death. If this sounds anticlimactic and slow, it’s because it is. Hence, you’re usually moving along at a snail’s place, partly because it’s difficult to maintain speed and build the track, and partly because the game takes forever to place the said track pieces anyway.

You also have to deal with the poorly optimized controls, given the fact that the vehicle oversteers at the slightest touch, making it incredibly frustrating to negotiate corners at slightly higher speeds. Thankfully, at least you can use a controller to have a better grip on the situation, but that only makes it better than with a keyboard, not better in general. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that controls are important in a racing game.

Things are much better in the graphics department, and it’s obvious that the designers put some soul into the environments and the game world in general. The desolate landscapes can be quite moody and engaging, even if you’ll barely get the chance to admire them while you build the track. The graphics quality is decent as well, although there are some performance issues that shouldn’t be there.

All things considered, Skyreach is certainly something new, and it’s only natural that it didn’t come out perfect the first time around. However, something has to change as quickly as possible, because right now the game is not able to keep players happy for more than a few minutes.