The Basic Things to Know

Easy to pick-up and play, difficult to master.

Beautiful landscape and smooth, precise controls.

Three game modes and power-ups to assist with the game’s natural difficulty.

Requires A LOT of focus and even more reflex.

Extremely addicting and hard to drop.

Great for people who like beating their own scores or leaderboard scores.

Ship Customization.

TENSION.

The Game

Race The Sun is an easy game to pick up, understand, and play. The two difficulties come with explaining the game without playing it, and to master the game even while playing it.

Race The Sun is about a solar powered drone in a race to stay in the sunlight as the sun sets while your score rises. As the player, you maneuver the drone through an abstract black and white landscape, dodging geometric obstacles and shadows on your quest to remain in the elusive sunlight. As you race you’ll come across blue multipliers floating around the landscape. The more of them you get, the faster your score rises allowing you to gain a higher rank on the game leaderboards.

The controls in this game are as smooth as they get. The most important thing I have to say about this is the fact that any crash you might have into an obstacles or any mistake made is 100% your fault. All the fuckups are you and not the game. It takes practice to master this game, and a lot of it. This game is one of the most difficult ones I’ve played thus far and probably one of the most addicting. It’s definite that many will rage quit this game, their eyes seeing only streaks of red.

Every level is randomly generated, and there is one level per game mode every day. Every player has the same level generated and a 24 hour period to test their skills on it before that level is gone forever and is replaced by the one for the next day. This makes the leaderboards the one true main character in the game, because the ultimate goal behind your score (AKA the race for sunlight) is to end up in a high position on the leaderboard.

This twitchy gameplay requires tremendous focus and reflex, but you are not left to deal with this difficult task alone. Outside the game, through the ‘Configure Ship’ menu, you could alter the ships performance and endurance through unlocked attachments. The drone’s handling could be improved. Its battery life outside the sunlight could be lengthened. Its reach for power-ups could be extended.

In game, you could also come across a couple of helpful power-ups. The ability to jump is granted through green crystals laid through each level. A re-spawn wormhole is granted through a pinkish crystal, and a speed boost can be granted through a yellow crystal. All of these are helpful and you’ll spend most of your time trying to set yourself a course for them in order to last longer in the sun’s light.

In the game, you’ll also come across shortcut tokens, laid out randomly and rarely through the levels. I’ve never actually seen more than one per play through. This brings an element of strategy to the game. If you don’t pick it up in the earlier levels, it will continue to show up in the later ones until you decide to take it or until it expires, if you manage to make it so far. And if it expires at all, which I don’t know for a fact that it does. The other in game gem is a portal that takes you out of your current level into a place that looks much like space with shapes and rocks floating around as the current obstacle until you reach its end and get taken to the level which follows the one you exited.

The game comes with three game modes; Race the Sun,

Apocalypse,

and Labyrinth.

Race the Sun and Apocalypse are basically the same mode with the one difference being their difficulty. Apocalypse is appropriately named being absurdly challenging. Not to say that the Race the Sun mode is easy by any means, but it is recommended as a starting point to train and prepare for Apocalypse if you ever plan to visit that hellscape.Apocalypse is slightly different visually in which the color red dominates much of the environment giving it a more sinister feel. Assuming the black and white scheme in Race the Sun mode was an intentional design feature to reduce distractions through overstimulation, in Apocalypse it would be used as the opposite, making it even more difficult to focus on staying out of the way.

The third game mode, Labyrinth, is a similar mode with a top down view and slower paced gameplay. Its difficulty is still a very real thing, but it’s easier to figure out than the other two game modes. The basic principles are the same, in which you are simply attempting to stay alive and not crash head first into any one thing. The sun isn’t present in this game mode, so avoiding shadows or running out of time is no longer an issue. Obstacle dodging is all this game mode is about, and if you want lighter gameplay, it should be your go to game mode. It’s also a great introduction to the game without having to force tense objectives like staying in the sun’s light, for beginners.

The music in the game is also pretty amazing and it fits the abstract feeling quite well. Most of it is lower key, and flows smoothly with your drone, but every couple of levels you’ll come across the one that’s a bit tenser, equal to the level in which it is played. It’s just a nice little touch to have balanced music.

The Verdict

This game is for everyone. Whether you like arcade games, twitchy gameplay, split second choices, easy going games, or nerve destroying focus. All of this is for you. Doesn’t matter who the hell you are, I highly recommend taking a chance and playing the game. It’s about $10.00 on the PlayStation store. It’s worth the time.

The landscape is beautiful and the music goes great with it.

The controls are smooth and precise with challenging levels and power-ups to assist in gameplay.

Three similar game modes with ranging difficulties for all skill levels of gaming, making the game an easy pickup.

The shared daily levels give the game a sense of community as you compete for the highest score. Yet, the game maintains its level of personal challenge as you try to outdo your own score before the 24 hours end and a next stage replaces the previous.

Simple and easy to understand, ship customization.

Basically, the game has a little of everything in it.

Is it good? Should you get it? I’d say yes, but I don’t know who you are or what you like. Check out some other reviews and if you like to watch gameplay, hit YouTube and see what’s going on. I’ll leave you with one of my many runs to better understand.

If you get the game, enjoy!

Here you go: