Race The Sun: First Impressions
Not to confused with the 1996 movie of the same name (starring Halle Berry, James Belushi and a solar powered car), Race The Sun is a unique arcade racer from Flippfly that tasks the player with speeding forwards into the glare of the sun, dodging obstacles as they appear while reaching for high scores and personal bests.
It's a singularly focussed premise, and the execution is similarly basic. Landscapes have a brutal simplicity - hard edged and uncomplicated. Each object casts a shadow that must be avoided as your craft is solar powered and relies on the sun's gaze for maintained momentum. Score multipliers and speed boosts litter each stage (and a bird occasionally appears ahead of you and literally craps out more perks for you to fly over and collect), and ramps and one-use jump perks must also be grabbed if you want to bag the highest scores.
At first each level is straight forward and simple to navigate, but quickly the scenery becomes trickier to avoid. Pillars collapse in your path, obstacles roll in front of you, huge patches of shadow appear seemingly out of nowhere. Clip an obstacle and you'll slow down but carry on, hit scenery head-on and it's back to the start. If you can't keep pace with the setting sun and it disappears, it's also game over.
You can upgrade your ship and levelling up is achieved by reaching milestones in-game. However, the main draw here is the high score chasing. There's global leader-boards to aim at, and like the world that you race through, they reset every day. This means we're given a constantly refreshed challenge, and it's as pure as it is addictive.
Race The Sun can be bought direct from the developers (it's slightly cheaper - around £6 - and can be found here), or you can also grab it from Steam.
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