An Action-Packed, Immersive Racing Adventure
Zeeppo’s upcoming racing title, Chaos Road: Combat Racing packs enough punch to challenge its competitors—even while still in beta. Dynamic camera angles, unique abilities, and never-ending tracks make this game an almost certain post-release success.
Simple Mechanics, Challenging Gameplay
The developers of Chaos Road: Combat Racing are building this game with a unique perspective on hold-to-play racing games. Holding your finger on the screen makes the car accelerate while dragging it to the sides dodges incoming obstacles and shoots at enemies. As soon as you lift your finger off-screen the game goes into pause. It does not come to a complete halt, rather a menu pops up that highlights the objectives of the race. The menu also allows you to buy any abilities to aid you in completing your level. The pause screen feature is unique to this game because the game never stops.
Conventionally, in hold-to-play games, when you lift your finger off-screen, the game comes to a complete halt, or your character remains stagnant while the NPCs carry on their motions which leads your certain death. In Chaos Road: Combat Racing you as the player need to maintain intensity and concentration throughout.
Players only control the car’s direction; acceleration, shooting and utilizing abilities are automated. At first, this might make you feel that the game is too simple and bland to play, but this is not the case. Yes, Chaos Road has simple mechanics, but the game brings its own set of challenges primarily through the use of dynamic obstacles. There are three kinds of obstacles in this game: cars, road blockers and missiles.
Each track in Chaos Road has five lanes. At any given time, four to five lanes are blocked by enemy cars. Using the guns on your car, you decide which enemies to destroy to create space for yourself. n combination with road blockers that pop out of nowhere and missiles that fly past you, an enemy car blocking lane forces you to make quick, intuitive decisions. Add the hold-to-play feature on top of this mental challenge and you have a game that keeps you on your toes. Even one second of distraction could lead to your death.
Ability-Controlled Camera Angles
Abilities in Chaos Road: Combat Racing gives the game a new dimension. Along with modifying your car’s abilities, they also initiate various dynamic camera angles. For example, when you collect the slow-motion ability, the game’s static, top-view camera pans down to a road-level cam and follows your car’s movements for seven seconds. Honestly, the road-level cam is amazing and, in my opinion, Zeeppo should make it the conventional in-game camera. This cam makes it harder to navigate incoming objects while giving the players near first-person gaming experience.
Similarly, when you collect the speed boost ability your car goes into hyperdrive, destroying any incoming objects and cars in its path. This creates a Hollywood-esque feel as you glide along with the track. Chaos Road: Combat Racing only has one track, however, the obstacle placements vary each time you race. The longer you survive the harder the game becomes. This is where optimizing your ability utilization comes into play. Additionally, the longer you race, the more coins you get. Use coins to modify your car by adding new weapons, improving armor and purchasing better cars.
Taking It to The Next Level
One aspect where this title needs improvement is audio. The background music during each race does not complement the thrill and challenge of the game. The music is mellow, evoking feelings that it would be more appropriate in a loading screen than a race.
The game’s abilities are what makes it challenging and fun to play. However, a clear description of all abilities is needed. I have described the nature of some abilities above, however, there are many more that I honestly have no idea about, even after playing the game for 12 hours.
There are no checkpoints in this game. Each track is divided into four to five parts with an end goal of surviving long enough to challenge the ‘boss’ (and beating them to complete the level). Prior to qualifying for a duel with the boss, you need to destroy several other opponents. On the top right corner of your screen, the game displays the distance between you and each opponent.
If at any point of the level you die before or even after reaching the boss, you start again from the beginning. This feature makes the game increasingly difficult, as completing a level takes around five to ten minutes. Losing your concentration for even a second leads to your death and completely resets your progress. Zeeppo should look into adding checkpoints in levels as starting from scratch each time is too demanding and overtime leads to burnout.
Headed for an Explosive Release
In a nutshell, Chaos Road: Combat Racing already feels like a well-polished game. The tracks are well designed and the dynamic camera angles create an immersive gaming experience from the get-go. Overall, Zeeppo’s refreshing take on hold-to-play dynamics caught my attention and pulled me in. And these innovative practices are likely what will make this game stand out from its competitors upon release.
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