Antigraviator
Antigraviator was one of many games within my Steam backlog that had the dreaded "Not Played" status regarding total playtime. Like most gamers on a budget, bundle deals are some of the best ways to obtain Steam games as there will always be a hidden gem waiting to be discovered. Sometimes they are gems, other times they aren't. I've covered a fair share of futuristic anti-gravity racers to know what to expect from Antigraviator. Hovercrafts built for speeds of over a thousand miles per hour through futuristic cityscapes and natural environments.
In most antigrav racers, players have control over their ship as they can angle the pitch and side brakes to make adjustments on the fly. It's similar to controlling a fighter jet yet with the same strategy as circuit racing. When it's done correctly, it can create an amazing sense of speed that always feels as if you're on the edge of crashing out. It can make for some of the most breathtaking racing experience and it's part of why games like F-Zero is coveted. Antigraviator feels less like the "realistic" racers such as Wipeout and more similar to the aforementioned F-Zero titles.
The crafts behave less like hovercrafts and more like road vehicles. It's tricky to explain but in games like Flashout 3, I felt I had more control over my ship. Here, the craft's grip was too close to the ground, and braking was met with accuracy like that of a car. Antigraviator's handling physics isn't bad and I prefer this style of handling for a simplistic arcade racer such as this. Players expecting this to behave like a traditional anti-grav should be aware that it's a lot more forgiving once you get the hang of it.
What isn't as forgiving is everything else relating to how races work. Like most antigrav racers, power-ups are an integral part of races, giving players weapons, boosts, and shields to defend themselves. Power-ups in Antigraviator are tokens that are scattered throughout the track. Each token holds a charge with each craft having a different maximum number of charges available. A player can spend one of their stored charges to give themselves a turbo boost, which is the only way to boost in game modes that allow power-ups.
The second way to use charges is offensively as a trap. On the top of the HUD is a timeline with checkpoints marking a specific trap location. If a player is near a trap, they can spend a charge to set a trap. Any opponent that triggers the trap will grant the player a shield that blocks other enemy's traps. The traps range from missiles that deal damage and slow enemies down. Other traps are environment changes including falling debris or a defense system firing lasers in the path of the driver. While this all sounds great on paper, the traps are activated in advance.
If the player is in third place, the player can trigger traps that will affect those placed higher, which would be second and first place. Since traps are only activated by collecting energy tokens, the AI will always go for the optimal route that will grant them these tokens. Unfortunately, Antigraviator suffers from "respawn time syndrome," where the respawn time for power-ups is set up so that a trailing player won't get any power-ups from a player ahead who was able to grab almost all of them. This eliminates the "setting up traps" strategy as the player will never have *enough* energy to activate traps without adjusting their line.
To avoid any of this, the best strategy I found is to make my way through the pack as quickly as I can, maintain the lead, and spam boost every time I go through a line of power-ups. Since having a full charge of energy is wasted as you can't collect more than full capacity, if you use the boost as you go over power-ups, you'll always have enough to maintain a high speed throughout the track while also making sure your opponent never has a comeback factor of their own. By the time they are able to set off traps of their own, the player should be far enough ahead of the pack.
Players looking for a challenge should avoid the free DLC craft as the craft is available from the beginning of the game while also having the highest base stats out of all the available ships. It even narrowly edges out the fastest ship in the game that costs hundreds of credits although the only "drawback" is that it costs millions to upgrade. At that point, the player would have a "win more" condition as upgrading the DLC craft is not needed to beat the game.
Overall, Antigraviator was okay. It was a decent early afternoon antigravity racer that felt more like a quick arcade experience on a budget. It wasn't at all a terrible game as I expected, but once players know the science behind winning races, it overstays its welcome.
Antigraviator is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Steam