NeonCityAlpha

Sci-fi racing games can always be tons of fun, but it’s important that they provide the players with a challenge, especially since realism is pretty much out of the question. There are many examples of good games in the genre, but there are also plenty of bad ones. Repetition and lack of content are the main culprits for failure, but they can be easily avoided with a bit of work.

NeonCityAlpha is an arcade game in which you get to combine shooting and racing, which is about as nice as it can get under the circumstances. Granted, you shouldn’t expect epic explosions or visceral races like in Death Race, but at least you won’t get a chance to get bored in this regard. On the other hand, the mechanics might get annoying after a while.

To begin with, your goal is to keep up with the car in front and shoot at it until it explodes. However, there’s no way to accelerate or use the brakes, so you can only steer and not worry about keeping the pace. On the other hand, there are obstacles on the road, which means that it’s a bit of a bummer that you cannot brake when you need it.

In case you happen to hit an obstacle or slide against the rail for a few seconds, you can replenish the lost hit points by picking up special power-ups. Obviously, these are placed in such a way as to make it easier for you to hit even more obstacles, at least if you do not pay enough attention to the road ahead. Given the fact that you must also keep shooting at the same time, it’s a pretty wild recipe for fun.

As far as the technical side of things is concerned, the game does not try to start any riots, so it looks about as basic as possible. The environments are pretty repetitive as well, not to mention the track itself. Thankfully, at least the latter is procedurally generated, so you’ll never run out of highway.

In the end, NeonCityAlpha could certainly be a lot better, but it can keep you busy for a few minutes even now in this rough state. Hence, if the level design is improved and more purpose is added to the gameplay, this could certainly get a lot better in the future.