Gravity Chase is an upcoming futuristic racing title that could be what F-Zero (and Wipeout) fans have been looking forward to.
The first time I laid hands on Nintendo’s F-Zero, I was in love. It was my first gateway into the world of futuristic racing gaming. It was the complete package—lots of courses, a nice selection of vehicles, and rocking tunes. Since the first game, I couldn’t stop playing the series until Nintendo stopped making the game. I’ll admit I never gave up hope that we’d see another F-Zero. yet, time after time, that follow-up failed to materialize. Now I doubt we’ll ever see it.
Thankfully, there have been scores of futuristic racing games since then. All of which have tried to give fans of F-Zero something else to play. We have another game with Gravity Chase, a still in development racing by indie developer Repixel8. When I eventually found out about Gravity Chase, I reached out to Repixel8 and was provided access to the current build. I’ve been playing it ever since.
At first glance, Gravity Chase does share several similarities with F-Zero. It has the same cartoon-ish look and has a simple-looking interface. The vehicles are all hovercraft / zero-gravity racing machines, but they lack the futuristic features I’d like to see. The tracks seem to be inspired by F-Zero AX, which featured several tubular tracks and had players spinning around them while racing. Those aren’t the only tracks, as there are several half-pipe tracks in the Gravity Chase build. Though the more exciting tracks have to be unlocked, it takes a bunch of points to do so. I’m not too keen on that aspect to be honest. I’d rather race among a circuit that includes several tracks, than having to grind out every new track.
What separates Gravity Chase from other zero-gravity games is, well, gravity plays a big part. The gravity effect will be weaker or stronger based on the difficulty you select. The weak gravity doesn’t affect you, and I didn’t notice it on normal either. However, when you ramp things up to hard, you notice it. Especially when you’re trying to steer away from other vehicles, speed traps, or hitting the boosters that are laid out on the track, you really get an idea as to how much gravity can affect a race.
There’s also some combat in the game, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as just racing. Mainly due to the combat being lackluster; you have a single weapon and can only attack vehicles in front of you. However, the game has this auto-targeting, and you can choose who you want to shoot. This especially is troublesome due to the tubular tracks don’t really make much sense to have combat as it’s simple to avoid. Hopefully, this changes before the game is officially released.
Gravity Rush was in development for Xbox and PC before the COVID-19 pandemic but was put on hold for most of 2021. Repixel8 has stated that the development is back on, and we should see more of Gravity Chase in the future — no pun intended.
If you enjoy zero gravity racers, be sure to watch for Gravity Chase.
