by: Michael Barnes

The best racing game mechanics task the player with finding that precarious balance between speed and control. Too fast, and you’ll careen all over the course. Too slow, and you’re eating exhaust. Hungarian developer Digital Reality has just about as firm a grasp on this key concept as anyone else in the field, and their recent under-the-radar release Skydrift is a surprisingly tight arcade style racer that would be regarded as a classic had it been released as a quarter-muncher in the mid-1990s.

It’s also a fairly singular title. There aren’t exactly a lot of airplane racing games on the market as it is, let alone Kart-style ones complete with weapon pick-ups ranging from mines to machine guns. Unfortunately, the game seems on a collision course with obscurity due to a lack of market visibility and a dull presentation, which is a damn shame because it’s one of the better arcade-style racers of recent years.

Players commandeer their choice of propeller-driven airplanes with a number of performance ratings through six very well-designed courses spanning a number of environments. Graphics are sometimes stunningly great for a low-budget downloadable title, and the oil rigs, jungles, ice fields, volcanoes, geysers, shipwrecks, and other terrain elements make for some thrilling races with multiple paths and secret routes. The tracks also feature some Split/Second-like dynamic destruction and degradation for an extra chaotic kick. There are also mirror versions of each track that race very differently, doubling the number available.

There are three race types and in the campaign mode they are arranged in typical circuit fashion, with plane, skin, and level unlocks keyed to progress. Power Race is the core mode and it features all of the weapon power-ups. A plane can hold two items, double up on one type to increase its efficacy, or consume unwanted pickups to increase a turbo boost meter. Survival is a typical last place elimination mode with a timer ticking down the seconds while the back of the pack struggles to stay in the race. Speed Races have the racers flying through speed-boosting rings throughout each course in a straight-up rush to the finish.

Despite ring-threading, Skydrift is no PilotWings. You won’t be lazily gliding around admiring scenery. This is a fast, furious seat-of-your-pants flyer. According to a loading screen interstitial, the fastest planes can top Mach 1 in the Speed Races. The game features one of the coolest speed-boosting mechanics in a long time, and it’s one that really plays to that balance of speed and control that makes racers so thrilling. The game encourages you to court danger by flying extremely low to the ground, which increases speed rather dramatically. But of course, with that speed comes less control, and you might be hugging the ground literally feet above it. Ground-hugging also builds up the turbo meter, so there again it’s almost like the game is daring you to go faster.

And going faster makes the game sometimes incredibly exciting, weaving in and out of scaffolds and making hard, 90 degree turns in caves while dodging missiles fired by your rivals. Control is dead on with the expected throttle and braking functions paired with a right-stick knife-edge bank for hard turns and barrel rolls. Skydrift is a game that rewards skill and that zen-like sense of locking in and finding the fastest zones, braking angles, and going belly-down to the ground to pick up speed.