STG's

GRIP - Battle Racing is a PC (you guessed it) battle racing game. I got it on Twitch Prime, otherwise it is doubtful if I would buy it. I like the premise and I have fond memories of many racing games with battle elements - particularly Death Track, from 1989. What I do like about GRIP is the graphics and the clever use of levels where you can ride around tubes and on ceilings. The weapons seem a bit too simple - maybe from the transition to controllers from keyboards? I remembering having a bunch of weapons on Death Track - including many that could attack cars behind you, such as mines, caltrops or oil slicks. Also, I'd like to be able to see behind and in front at the same time. Funnily enough, this was common back in the 90s, but I rarely see it anymore on racing games... As seems to be necessary for all racing games, it is best to use a controller. I haven't used a controller in years, but I had to connect one to play GRIP, as it feels much better using one. ...

Gas Guzzlers Extreme is a racing shooter. You start with a particularly lame car (after a single race with a well loaded, nice car), and as you win unlock more powerful cars, upgrades and weapons. Clearly nothing revolutionary, but driving feels fun and has OK physics. You can really feel the difference between driving on the road, desert and snow. Crashes and bumping off the road looks a little arcade-y, though. Weapons are OK, but don't think that you are going to get a nice shot and take someone out. With the shotgun, machine guns or rocket launchers it is going to take a while to kill any enemy. There is some big impact effects from hits of rockets or shotguns, though. (on regular settings, at least. There is an arcade mode, but I didn't try it yet) There are several tracks, as well as regular, no weapon races (boring!), the main races where you can use guns, and an elimination mode where the slowest car on each lap is removed. Of course, there are power-ups you ca...

Trackmania 2: Canyon is an unusual racing game. The original trackmania revolved around insane tracks (with loops, jumps, etc) and user-made tracks. Trackmania 2: Canyon is mostly about racing to other people records or medal times. Your only company is the ghost cars running beside you (or inside - there are no car collisions). You also run against your best try on that track. Graphics are just OK, music is acceptable. Controller support is OK, albeit a bit weird - you can't always control the UI between the runs, and have to use the mouse for that. Seems a bit silly. It is an Ubisoft game (I just realized this after buying it, otherwise I probably would have skipped it). Surprisingly, I didn't have any major problems running the game - just a retry on account creation, with just an error message throwing me to the start of the process (keeping all I entered). I wonder why would you do that, instead of just having Retry/back buttons? Just lack of attention to details, ...