Review: System Rush

Score:
88%

Okay, here’s how Nokia are going to sell this game to people: "System Rush is a cyber-punk styled high octane, futuristic game set in the underground world of hackers and unethical multinationals. [It] takes place over five individually styled networks that play host to the game's virtual worlds." Takes your breath away, doesn’t it.

Now here’s how I’m going to review the game: "It’s Wipeout on the N-Gage, it’s frakkin fast, and it might just be the best mobile racing game I’ve seen in a long time," Sold it to you yet?

Let’s just take a moment to talk about the game play. How fast does it move, how good is the handling, can you feel like you're racing around a track? In short, yes. When you first reach a new track (there are 15 tracks listed) you’re going to be so over the shop if you just mash down the accelerate button then more often than not you’ll end up trying to drive vertically up a wall. It does feel that you’re hanging on the edge and barely controlling your "code vehicle" racing car.

And this is one of the joys of System Rush. The learning curve for each track is pitched almost perfectly. Watching the difference between the first few runs on a new track, and someone who has been battering round, lap after lap, to get the extra few seconds, is a sight to see. Both of them will have the accelerate key held down for almost the whole lap, but there’s a finesse and lightness of touch that you’ll need to steer your way to success.

A great example of this is the first "America" track, as this probably gives the first major challenge. After a few laps of crashing, you’ll be settled in laps of around 46-47 seconds. But to win the three-lap race, come first, and advanced to the next American track, you’re going to need to get that lap time down to around 39-40 seconds. It is possible, you’re just going to need to work out where you can improve, which data chips you can pick up as you drive around to add a few tenths to your speed, which power-ups will help and which are distractions. And the rush you get when you actually win? Well that’s the key to gaming in a nutshell, on any platform!

Yes you must come first. There’s nothing for second place. The main game doesn’t bother with points and a league table (although a separate Grand Prix mode does have this, albeit on different tracks to the main game). You race each circuit three times. One lap the first time, twice the second time around, three times on the third. When you win, you advance to the next track. If you don’t then you try again. What’s nice is you can attempt each race as many times as you like, they stay unlocked no matter what you do, so there’s no going through previous races to get to the race that’s causing you problems.

The races are grouped by country, so you can attempt these in any order, and switch at any time. So if you are getting stuck on the American track, you can head on over to the British track and spin round that for a bit.

Oh and Nokia have been at the kool-aid again – because all of this racing around is actually you hacking into massive corporation computer networks to steal information to build a super .exe that can take out the last corporation. Or something.

System Rush is a classic futuristic racing game, if that makes any sense. The graphics are hurled round the screen with no indication of any freezing or visible pauses for redrawing. It feels fast, handles well, and the learning curve for this mobile game is perfect. Definitely recommended.

 

 

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