Inertial Drift Review

 

Deja Vu...-An Inertial Drift Review

The arcade racing genre of games has become one of my interest ever since I went back and gave ridge racer type 4 a shot a year or so ago. Ever since, I've intermittently played new offerings that have cropped up (mainly because the ridge racer series is completely in the water at this point) regardless of popularity. When Inertial Drift came up in my steam recommendations a few days ago, I knew I had to give it a shot and look into its offerings (not to mention the title being an homage to Initial D, an anime I particularly enjoy). 

Arcade Drifting with a Different Approach

In most of these games, controls are fairly simple. You have a gas button with a corresponding brake button, sometimes even a separate handbrake button, and you use the left stick to steer in the event you are using a traditional controller. 

For Inertial Drift, however, you still have access to those brake and gas buttons, but you instead use both sticks to fully control your vehicle. Your right stick is dedicated entirely to drifting, and your left stick is used for slight movements for your car. True mastery of this control scheme is satisfying, but it does take a bit to readjust for someone who plays these games every so often. 

This title has a fantastic sense of style, with a brilliant combination of fresh visuals alongside great music tracks. In a similar fashion to Ridge Racer, I found myself turning down engine sounds just to hear these great pieces more clearly. The pseudo cell shaded graphical sense is interesting, and looks fantastic while never impeding your driving ability. Every turn is clearly laid out, which makes the first run-through of a track as fair as possible. There's also this distinct neon red trail that persists when you hit brake around corners, which lends itself to this immense sense of speed and inertia as you dramatically squeeze around hairpin turns.

As for the content available here, it really comes down to how much you want to delve into it. There's a fun little story mode (with an unlockable harder difficulty, it even has little scenes in between races with each of the characters) that you can go through with multiple characters as well as an arcade and grand prix mode you can play with multiple cars (all of which have very distinct driving styles). 

If you have the desire to sink time into it you'll find enjoyment playing the auxiliary modes with all the cars, but ultimately I was left a little disappointed in just how quickly the campaign ended-even when I played to get all the platinum and gold medals. This is not to say I disliked all the maps, quite the contrary, but I was so enamored with their design that I wanted more (the best problem to have). 

The multiplayer online mode is available, but with a current average of 3.5 players it seems unlikely that you'll find a match. It's unfortunate, but sadly the fate of many of these indie titles that fail to break the public eye (even back when it released, Inertial Drift only had an all time peak of less than 200 players). It's unfortunate because there really was a high skill ceiling here with the unique controls and feel of the title. 

Verdict

While Level 91 Entertainment took a risk by going for a different control scheme than the genre standard, it paid off in spades. Had only it been filled with a bit more unique content, I would've given it a perfect score. Nonetheless, it's definitely worth your time if you like arcade racers and are willing to try something a bit different.

8.7/10-A Different Type of Drive