Just played a bit of Intertial Drift: Sunset Prologue, which is a free demo of an indie arcade racer coming out soon. I found this to be pretty impressive and fun, and actually quite innovative for a genre that usually sees little of it. And it's innovative in a way that actually improves the core driving gameplay in a unique feeling way, rather than just bolting on some distracting gimmick as is often the case when racers decide to venture off in to new territory. The idea is that you have direct control over your drift with the right stick, so you can initiate it basically whenever you want, with fine control over the precise angle, and keep it going exactly as long as you want.
But it's not totally without restrictions. Your normal turning ability is somewhat limited, and your drift angle dictates basically how far you can turn in the same direction, but drifting will also limit your acceleration too. So the game encourages a slightly new way to approach an arcade racer, but basically using a drift to set yourself up for a corner, making sure you're at the right angle and position in the exit, so you can flick out of the drift as soon as possible to speed away. It's really interesting as it gets you thinking about when you need to start a drift, sometimes needing to set one up more than one corner before the one you're preparing for. It can require a lot of precision, and is actually rather hard. The demo consists of only two short time trials, and it was a challenge to get a gold medal on both. Took a handful of tries at each. While I like the idea that this is a new way of driving to wrap my head around, but it does make me wonder how difficult the full game is. If this is the introductory baseline, how harsh will the full game end up getting? Might be a bit too much for its own good.
Aesthetically it's pretty cool as well. It's got a cartoonish retro-futurist neon look to it. Although there is one thing about the look I'm not too keen on. While the car designs are pretty good, they are a bit too tall and narrow for my liking. Oh, and this demo isn't a part of the Steam summer festival, so it's available any time.
