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You take the high road - Ben Taylor - 07/07/2009 22:59:40
Genre: Racing - Publisher: Sidhe Interactive - Release Date: 12/12/2007

If there's anything in life that distances me from the rest of the human race, it's their love for sport. It just doesn't appeal to me. Tennis seems like some sort of mild exercise focusing on the neck area of those watching. Football is just a panto filled with men who will find any excuse to trip over and cry to bits due to a grazed knee until mummy comes to give them a juice carton and take them back to their expansive luxury penthouse to watch Blue's Clues in HD. The concept of motor racing confuses me the most. If I wanted to see cars rapidly drive around in a circle, bashfully attempting to make their way to the front, I'd just sit by the M25 during rush hour with a klaxon, randomly blurting out hysterical nonsense at any that are blue. It's my favourite colour, so I'll support it. Sport need to have some sort of evolution to make it more interesting to us who are forced to watch it every time it hogs the TV schedule. Perhaps a confused Jack Russell can run in-between tennis players attempting to catch the ball, and if it ever does, both lose and all spectators must howl in honour and the dog let lose to do what it likes on Henman Hill. Perhaps football should start adding Battle Royale 'Death Zones', randomly detonating parts of the pitch every 5 minutes, really giving the players something to cry about. Motor racing should consist of huge lumps of metal sewn together by springs and hydraulics, built especially to race 50 million miles in the air, able to take the punishments of huge loop-the-loops and able to carry off death defying stunts. If the 2012 Olympics Committee need convincing that this is the way forward, I urge them to check out GripShift to see that I'm absolutely bloody right.

GripShift is a gem hidden incredibly deep within the XBLA and lays solemnly like an underdog playing dead. Throw 800 Microsoft Points its way, however and it'll suddenly kick into action and reward you with tons upon tons of features that'll ensure that you're getting bang for your buck.

The key thing that differs GripShift from other racers isn't the cars or the events, it's the tracks. Each racing track floats above Earth and comprises of several overwhelmingly abstract features. TNT boxes litter the driveways. Gravity panels drag you away from the track and into oblivion. Portals jump you to random positions, leaving you dazed and confuses. With no safety rails to cordon off the edges of the tracks weaving paths and loops, each event is teeth grittingly tense.

Constantly being rewarded for bettering yourself keeps you glued to the screen

'Challenge Mode' takes centre stage and best exhibits the aforementioned track layouts. Challenges consist of 3 objectives that can be completed at any given time. Players must complete courses in the fastest times possible, collect several stars littered around and collect an elusive 'GS Token' on each of the 120 unique tracks. Not all have to be done in one sitting, however, and challenges can be repeated several times over in order to achieve complete domination. This encouraging replay value coupled with the sheer amount of tasks to complete makes for an incredibly extensive game. But there's more...

On top of the item hoarding challenges, there are additional race modes. Although you are able to reap the same rewards from these that you can in challenges, it doesn't take up a bulk of the game and isn't quite as entertaining in comparison. This in no way means that they drag the whole game down with it, however. The added variety just adds more to the addictive persona of GripShift. One-on-one races bit players against a challenging computer player whilst adding several collectables in the area for players to grab and boast about. Four player races take a more standard approach, but aid drivers with various different weapons to help them reach poll position. All races prove to be incredibly challenging and are guaranteed to add sweat to your brow, yet ultimately falter in comparison to the challenges. Weapons fail to be particularly unique and are recycled from the simplest of weapons from wacky kart games of yesteryear. Despite this, it still offers some brilliantly frantic action and-somewhat bizarrely for a driving game-allows the racing to become a nice little addition to the main game.

Winning races and completing objectives allow you to unlock new vehicles, car designs and most importantly new tracks and difficulties. Constantly being rewarded for bettering yourself keeps you glued to the screen and makes GripShift even more addictive.

At one point, however, you're rewarded with 'Evil' mode, a devilishly hard-as-nails difficulty which puts you up against some of the most ridiculous level designs imaginable. In all fairness, this is what I should come to expect from a difficult mode, but just glimpsing at the vast complexity of levels and the death-traps littered along the way makes you wonder if there's any conceivable way of making it from A to B. It's difficult to explain, but imagine having a minute to swat a fly in a minefield. That's 'Evil' mode. Anyone who manages to complete that deserves the title 'Sir Master Manoeuvres' and all their limbs intact.

GripShift stands to be the XBLA's best kept secret and one of its best additions to the marketplace. Combining the need for both environmental puzzle solving and skills in driving precision, it manages to balance both well to create an incredibly addictive driving game. If the racing side of things was given more attention, this could've even shone out as one of the best and most unique driving games on the 360. Let's hope that all sports can take heed of this games utter disregard for human safety and start some violent reinvention. Apart from Ice Hockey. That can stay.