Super Impossible Road Preview

Super Impossible Road describes itself perfectly within its title. Yet, with its somewhat super impossible nature there is an upside that this game does not become tedious or too difficult. There is a good balance between tricky and compelling in this game, and with the compelling nature outweighing the difficulty, you feel like coming back to Super Impossible Road just to keep testing yourself.

In Super Impossible Road you control a large spherical vehicle, racing with little limitations and no care for keeping to the track. Picking up the boosts on the way is essential, as you are only allowed five seconds off the track before you respawn at your last point on the track, and you pick these up by passing through checkpoints. The use of boosters is imperative when it comes to cutting corners or taking a leap of faith down below. The tracks do start high and gradually work their way low, so there are a plethora of opportunities to win the day, even if your first attempts go wrong.

On one of the tracks in particular, Keres, there is a sense of Rainbow Road from the Mario Kart series, except there is a much greater onus on cutting corners here. I also had flashbacks to Super Mario 64 when Mario races the penguin on Cool, Cool Mountain and finds a shortcut through a hidden wall. Who doesn’t like shortcuts in racing games or bending the rules just a little bit, like taking shortcuts that your opponents missed? What I loved most about the racing was that if you are in last place and you time your corner cutting perfectly, you can end up in first. It’s that unpredictability that makes Super Impossible Road so enjoyable.

It is a really fun and vibrant game. The colours and animations are vivid and powerful, and they really jump out at you. However, it isn’t a game you can play for an extended period of time as it isn’t particularly kind on the eyes, due to its high speed and bright animations. It isn’t anything major, but it felt noteworthy enough to mention.

The soundtrack is really cool as well. Everything you see captured in the game so far is continued in the soundtrack, with a futuristic sound accompanying the visuals. Playing Super Impossible Road in the dark with headphones adds to the overall experience of racing.

If you are finding the game to be a struggle, and at first it can be, you can alter the AI difficulty and the complexity of the tracks - there are two to choose from currently, Keres and Athos without a great difference between them in terms of gameplay, only visually. Staying on the track is extremely hard, especially so if you’re using a keyboard, so there’s no doubt using a controller makes Super Impossible Road a little less impossible.

There does appear to be plenty of game modes once the game in its entirety is released - such as career mode and online play. Currently there is solo race, time gate, and survival mode to play through. Solo race speaks for itself, as you race against seven AI controlled spheres. In time gate, the time keeps ticking away and you need to keep the time ticking by passing through checkpoints along the way. Survival mode is pretty basic - to see how far you can go before falling off the track. This game mode was quite enjoyable, as I wanted to keep testing myself to see if I could improve on my previous best distance.

 

The menus are really hard to navigate through, and closing the game down is too. On the solo race, it said “Press A to join”, but no matter how many times I pressed it, nothing happened. It turned out using the ‘enter’ key was the current button, so there are slight flaws that need eradicating within the menus.

Once Super Impossible Road can support online games, I think it will be brilliant. Racing against other players is what makes any racing game compelling, especially when the gameplay here is so conducive to high-octane thrills.

It's a great idea for a game, well executed, and I honestly can't wait to see the online mode available. The music is some pretty decent techno to get you into the moment, and compliments the look of the world quite well. I am looking forward to seeing how Super Impossible Road develops further, as the foundations it has laid places it in pole position moving forward.