Drift Punk

Although some people prefer realistic physics when it comes to drifting games, others are happier when they are allowed to keep sliding for as long as possible. Hence, arcade racing games that feature drifting focus on other things, because in truth, successfully keeping control of a real car during a long-distance drift is not as easy as it appears anyway.

Drift Punk is an arcade game that even though has the word “drifting” in its name is not all about that. You are actually riding a sci-fi bike instead, which doesn’t even touch the ground, so there’s hardly any classical drifting involved anyway. In truth, this is more of a fast-paced puzzle game with racing elements, since the actual goal is to pick up more people on your bike and take them to specific destinations.

These are not just any ordinary people, however, but rebels and partisans trying to uprise against some kind of oppressive regime, most likely. Hence, although you can only pick up a handful of them at first, once you reach the destinations your bike gets longer, so that you can transport more people at once. Naturally, this also makes it harder to control the bike in corners or tight spaces.

It’s also worth mentioning that the streets are not empty, so you cannot just drift around without a care in the world. There are cars, buildings and various other objects you can crash into, so it takes quite a bit of effort to avoid all of these obstacles. Obviously, the challenge makes it that much more rewarding to admire your high score after a run, otherwise it wouldn’t be as fun.

Speaking of which, one flaw you might be annoyed by is the fact that after every crash you are shown the high score screen, which takes a few seconds to appear, plus a few more seconds to click on buttons if you want to start a new round. To make things less frustrating, it would be nice to be able to quickly try again after a failed run, without having to wait through that whole ordeal.

In the end, Drift Punk is obviously not designed to be released on the market as a complete product, which is why it can be rough around the edges. Even so, it’s certainly very enjoyable, not to mention the fact that you can get quite a few hours of fun out of it if you enjoy hunting high scores.