Inertial Drift

At first glance, Inertial Drift looks like any other racing game from the early 2000s. It has a cool cel-shaded art style, only a handful of tracks and physics that are so over-the-top that you might think you're playing a Ridge Racer sequel. But looks can be deceiving, because it's only after you pick up the controller that Inertial Drift's secret is finally revealed. This debut release from Level 91 Entertainment is what you might call a dual-stick racer. It's the kind of game where you steer with one analog stick and drift with the other, giving us a wholly unique take on the genre that comes with a fun learning curve. This is one of the most original racing games I've played this year.

If you don't like drifting, then this is not the game for you. Inertial Drift is the type of racer where it doesn't really matter how tight the corners are, because you're always going to fly around them with reckless abandon, barreling sideways like a Fast & Furious movie. Everything from the tracks to the modes are geared around drifting as much as possible, so much so that there's a second analog stick dedicated just to whipping the backend of the car around at any time.

This is the most interesting part of Inertial Drift, because it fundamentally changes the way you race around the ten courses. If you were to play it like any other racing game, you would barely get beyond the first turn. You'll quickly discover that the steer analog stick barely registers and trying to brake around a corner will send you flying right into a wall. The trick is in the second analog stick, which gives you full control over the drifting. This acts as a way to stylishly make big turns, all of which you can finesse by using the steer stick.

I'm not going to lie; this takes some getting used to. Thankfully, the game eases the player into driving sideways by having us play through a brief but exciting story mode that follows a group of teenage racers as they prepare for the Summer Grand Prix. This allows us to not only get used to the gameplay and course designs, but also introduces the teenagers to a bunch of new friends and rivals, all of which will populate the many modes found in Inertial Drift.

The story mode is pretty simple in concept. The teens want to practice, so they jump around the map meeting new people and challenging themselves on new courses. We'll need to complete three race types at each of these locations, which can be anything from a time trial to a standard one-on-one battle for first. Some of my favorite race types include a style battle (where we earn points from cleanly drifting around the course) and the duels (where we gain points for staying in front of the competition). What's even cooler is that every character has their own set of events and story beats, giving us a lot of incentive to go back through the mode multiple times in order to see it from all sides.

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And the truth is, that's just the start of the different modes found in Inertial Drift. Players will also want to complete the challenge mode in order to open up new vehicles, try their hand at that Grand Prix everybody has been talking about, and even play all ten courses forwards and backwards in the arcade mode. And before you ask, yes, Inertial Drift offers both split-screen multiplayer and online races, which is something I always love seeing in racing games.

Getting back to the racing, I really like a lot of the decisions made by the developer. It's not enough to master the handling of one car, because there are some big differences between vehicles. The dual-stick gameplay may be easy to pick up with the first couple cars, but the tougher rides will shake things up by forcing you to re-learn how to use the drift stick. There's a surprising amount of depth to be found here, especially when you unlock the nicer cars and harder difficulties. The funky steering may take a little getting used to, but once it clicks, you'll have a hard time putting it down. The drifting is so much fun.

Unfortunately, some of the fun is limited by the lack of content. Sure, this game is filled with modes and events, but there are only ten courses and a lot of them look the same. While I love the cel-shaded art style and the personality the developers have brought to the game, many of the levels share similar colors and backgrounds. With only ten stages, I was hoping for a little more variety. Another issue is that the narrow tracks tend to limit the types of events you get to race. Most of the game involves you racing against yourself or ghosts, with only the occasional one-on-one battle. It would have been fun to see larger scale races that involved five or six cars on the track at the same time, but that's not the focus on Inertial Drift.

What's clear is that Level 91 Entertainment has found a cool twist on the racing formula and made a fun game out of it. That said, this has the feel of a first game in a long-running franchise. They find a lot of ways of keeping you invested in the limited selection of tracks, but there's so much more that can be done with the drift mechanic. While I definitely liked Inertial Drift, I have a hunch that it's going to be the sequel that I fall in love with.