I used to be oddly intrigued after I first heard about developer Timbo Jimbo’s Static Shift Racing final week. The premise was that it’s an open-world road racing sport with a heavy ’90s vibe by way of automobiles and elegance, and there’s an enormous emphasis on customization with 1000’s of elements and upgrades so each racer can trick out their very own trip simply to their liking. It sounded massively formidable for what appeared like a fairly tiny studio, so I sort of figured it could both be an enormous success or a serious flop when it lastly launched.
Nicely, Static Shift Racing did launch globally this week and I’m glad to say it falls far more on the aspect of a hit. Don’t get me fallacious, there’s a lengthy methods to go in lots of respects, however what’s right here at launch is majorly spectacular, and extra importantly majorly enjoyable. As talked about you’ll roam round an open world getting into into varied sorts of races, and that is one space the place the sport feels prefer it may use some increasing. The surroundings isn’t as massive as your typical open world sport, however it’s extremely detailed with a number of well-designed roadways that can act as completely different circuits within the varied occasions.
Then there’s the car choice, which is simply 5 to begin, however these 5 are fairly completely different from each other and have numerous customization choices to discover. Once more, the extent of high quality and polish right here places a lot bigger studios to disgrace. Every little thing is tied to an total development system on your driver in addition to your varied automobiles. That is the a part of the sport that has actually sucked me in. Incomes XP, unlocking new elements, tricking out your trip with the brand new gear, after which heading again out to race some extra is a really satisfying sport loop. It’s like taking part in a loot-based dungeon crawler besides it’s a road racing sport, and it’s superior.
Additionally value mentioning is that the racing itself is tremendous enjoyable. Very arcadey and really drift-focused. It could actually really feel slightly wonky at first however when you get the grasp of issues it’s extraordinarily satisfying to carve round curves fully sideways whereas coloured smoke billows out of your tires and tunes blast out from the audio system. I feel the builders had been going for a really particular vibe with Static Shift Racing and I feel they positively nailed it.
With all these constructive factors does come some unfavourable. At the beginning is that there simply must be extra sport right here. Extra open world areas, extra automobiles, and extra occasion sorts. To be honest that is all stuff that’s supposedly already within the works and shall be coming quickly, however I’ve seen far too many video games make guarantees they by no means adopted by means of with so the proof will certainly be within the pudding ought to mentioned pudding actually materialize. The second factor is that this can be a very free to play sport, with a ticket system for getting into races the place the tickets are on cool-down timers in addition to two sorts of in-game foreign money. Up to now none of this has been a difficulty, however that’s all the time how they begin, proper? Long run stays to be seen.
All that mentioned the nice positively outweighs the dangerous right here, and as jaded as I’ve change into through the years I’d wish to suppose that this can be a developer that’s simply passionate a couple of very particular kind of racing sport and wished to make one among their very own, and is simply attempting to barter the troubled waters of cellular gaming as finest they will. What’s right here at the moment is a really, very stable base to one thing that might change into really particular, and the truth that it’s free does at the very least imply that anyone may strive it out for themselves to see if Static Shift Racing revs their very own engines as a lot because it has for me to date.
