Happy holidays everyone! With the weather getting colder, it’s a perfect time to stay inside and play some indie games. Hopefully you had a chance to take a look at the games we featured last month: Distance, Planet Alpha, Phantom Doctrine, and Graveyard Keeper. If you have some games in mind you would like us to feature, please leave a comment below.
This month we’re going to focus on GRIP: Combat Racing, from indie developer Caged Element.
GRIP: Combat Racing Publisher: Wired Productions Developer: Caged Element
GRIP: Combat Racing is a spiritual successor to the classic console game Rollcage. Just like Rollcage, players drive futuristic, high speed racers mixed with an awesome, drum thumping soundtrack.
The story is pretty simple - you’re an illegal street racer driving on tracks spread throughout the galaxy, battling other racers to win at all costs. Races take place on different planets throughout the galaxy, which adds some really nice variety to the game as each track has their own look and feel. They’re quite beautiful.
The racing gets fast. Very fast. Players drive at frenetic paces, sometimes up to 500 MPH, all while trying to avoid other racers and environmental obstacles on the track. What’s really fun, and forgiving, is the ability to drive along walls and ceilings. When you collide with walls in typical racing games, you crash. In GRIP: Combat Racing, you just drive up the wall. This can be disorienting at first, but you get used to it quickly.
You’re able to use this to your advantage as you can pass other racers while driving along the wall or ceiling. But the other racers can do the same thing, so sometimes you’ll find yourself behind without even realising it, making it important to stay aware of where the other racers are.
Power ups are your standard fare with a speed boost, rear shield, machine guns, and rockets. They’re a nice mix. The speed boost lets you catch up when you’re behind, or will put you further ahead. The rear shield defends against machine gun fire and rockets, the machine gun causes enemies to veer off course and the rocket destroys your opponent.
The game features a single player campaign, single player mode, and multiplayer. You’ll race your way through the campaign, unlocking tracks and upgrades for your vehicle. As you unlock the tracks in the campaign, they become available in single and multiplayer.
GRIP: Combat Racing features both NVIDIA Ansel and NVIDIA Highlights, allowing players to capture fantastic scenes from the game and automatically recording race highlights. Be sure to upload your NVIDIA Ansel screens to our Shot with GeForce page. You can see some Ansel screenshots below.
Gameplay performance is superb, with smooth frame rates across all GeForce GPUs. Players can even play at 4K 60FPS on the new GeForce RTX 2070!
Players have really taken to GRIP: Combat Racing. with a Very Positive user score on Steam with over 1000 user reviews. And the press like it, too:
Shacknews says “Caged Element's love letter to the futuristic racing games of yore is a solid blueprint for how to convert nostalgia into a working modern game”.
Fullsync says “...the game looks visually stunning and the detail is incredible, and it offers the same high-octane combat racing fun I remember in a whole new title.”
GRIP: Combat Racing is available now on Steam.
GRIP: Combat Racing was part of our indie game developer program, NVIDIA Indie Spotlight. If you are an indie game developer, apply today!