3 words: Asteroids on crack.
In all the good ways, that is.

The first thing that stood out to me was the Asteroids-like movement and screen wrapping. Build up some speed and keep zooming past the screen over and over, as expected. Next a few asteroids float past and you can shoot them to gain some points, cool. Then your first enemy spawns and now the differences start to show.

Your first kill is enough to gain level 1 and your first upgrade point. This is when the rogue-like aspects present themselves. The first upgrade step is picking a weapon, of which there are many. Ranging from classic bullet hell triple projectiles to a railgun to a freaking sawblade, just to name a few. A kill or two later you hit level 2, next upgrade is picking a shield power. A few kills later at level 3 and you get to pick your ship's body.

At this point there are already many interesting combinations you can make with different pro's and con's for weapon, shield and body combos. But then you hit level 4 and you're introduced to the full upgrade pool. Now we're cooking with fire.

It's at this point where there's so much to play with that attempting to list it all would be foolish. If any of this sounds even remotely interesting to you but still on the fence, look up some gameplay. Don't worry much about spoilers because the game can be played in so many ways I'm still finding new builds to this day.

And to sum up the enemies: They're very varied and pose interesting "combat puzzles" for lack of a better word. They can spawn one by one or in packs. Some roam mindlessly, some move around you in specific patterns.An observant eye is key to not getting annihilated by even low level enemies. But here's the catch. The game greatly rewards mastery to the point where you can eventually dance around the enemies and feel like a god. Well, until you hit later waves because you've gotten better and crazier enemy combos are thrown at you. The curveballs never seem to end, keeping the game feeling surprisingly fresh even after the 100th run.

Bonus points for responding to player feedback very well and constantly keeping the community in the know of what's going on during development. Many aspects of the game is constantly being polished and rebalanced, making me excited to see what's changed with every major update. Because so far it's all been for the better, even if it makes certain parts easier or harder it's a net gain.

I've played the game with gamepad (XB1) and locked the framerate to 60fps, in case that has any meaningful impact on the gameplay. I have tried all combinations of ABS and Traction Control to see how the physics and controls would react. I'd greatly recommend using "medium" TC for reasons mentioned later on. With the help of a friend I also explored all of the controls and assist options the game has to offer and was left feeling things lacking, more on that later as well.


Right off the bat the epilepsy and health warnings are written in a strange font. Good thing that I don't have a hard time reading the font, but I can see some people struggle. So if you're sensitive to the game's sensations and struggle to read certain fonts, be warned.

Following up with accessibility options, the color blindness options are quite strange. I don't have any issues seeing colors, however the different options have the race line's "accelerate" and "brake" colors be really similar. This feels like an unfair disadvantage to give someone, even if they can see the resulting colors. You need to know that the change in color suggests the thing after it is "slow down", you can't just look at the line and understand it. Like with protanopia both accelerate and brake look purple-ish with the "hold speed" section between them being light blue. Is purple "go fast" or "go slow"? Your guess is as good as mine.

Then getting into the game itself it instantly bombards me with how to customize the cosmetic/optional stuff. But wait, before I get to see the options for myself it prompts me to buy DLC stuff. I don't know what to buy, I don't even know what's in the game yet. For all I know they're trying to trick me into buying something that's already available.
But then when actually wanting to race I was left on my own to discover how to do all that. Quite odd that a racing game fails to introduce me to the racing.

Finally getting to the (should be) highlight of the game; the racing. Starting with F2 cars they're alright. Initial impressions the steering feels delayed but manageable at the speeds the cars go at. Curious to see what the driving experience is like, I then hop right into time trial to test out the other cars. Next up, supercars. They're surprisingly eager to get wheel-spin and don't react to tyre load a whole lot, but they're otherwise fine. The unresponsive steering is generally still fast enough to catch most mistakes, just don't try to play with the car and drift it or you're in for a struggle. (I know drifting is slower, I just wanna have fun sometimes. But game says no fun allowed.).

Lastly the title of the game, the F1 cars. The steering controls leave a lot to be desired here, because it's responding much slower than the car is capable of handling making it clear right away that my ability to go fast is severely held back. From digging through the various settings the game has I found a bit of everything but not the time the steering takes to respond. So any quick adjustments or flicks is out of the question. It can be fun when hotlapping, but I would not want to have fast paced contact races with these controls. Even the AI is pulling off moves the game simply wont let me attempt, even for relatively shallow turn transitions.

Credit where it's due, the simulation of the mechanical parts of the cars feels just about right. Not much to critique there. However the tyre simulation has some work to be done, because they seem to greatly prefer losing grip and ignoring resistances. Watching the tachometer, even going over mild bumps has the RPM wildly fluctuate if not outright resulting in spinning despite going practically straight. This goes for F1, F2 and the Ferrari Roma I tried out. If the tyres letting go was this easy I doubt the real life drivers would be as aggressive as they are, especially when battling.

The game bombards you with the customization and wanting to buy DLC/mtx right away, but little to no introduction to the actual racing. For competitive minded players, the keyboard/gamepad controls leave a lot to be desired. Your ability to go fast and having interesting battles will be very limited. And while the physics themselves seem fine, though I think the tyre sim should probably be at least a little more forgiving to traction loss. The tendency for wheel-spin can be overwhelming no matter the car class.