Posted in: Games, GDC, Video Games | Tagged: Antigravitator, Cybernetic Walrus, GDC, GDC 18, Iceberg Interactive

Gorgeous SciFi Racer Antigraviator Does Not Have a Speed Limit

Cybernetic Walrus and Iceberg Interactive gorgeous scifi racer Antigraviator does not come with a speed limit. At all. You can go 1000 MPH as long as you have enough boosts and don't ever hit anything, which is positively insane. People actually managed to hit 1000+ MPH at GDC last week which my brain is still having some trouble processing. I was not one of them. Driving, as you may know, is not exactly my specialty in games. Nor is jumping. And Antigraviator has a bit of both involved. Oh right, and trip mines, rockets, and other tools of sabotage are fully available during races.

The background of Antigraviator is this:

In the year 2210, racing has evolved far beyond its expected limits. New terraforming capabilities paired with scientific breakthroughs in the field of antigravity have given birth to a new spectacle: the Antigraviator tournament. In Antigraviator, players will race on exquisitely detailed stages, full of light-speed danger, chaos and mayhem. Gamers will guide their Grav in three gameplay modes across four different worlds with three tracks each. These dynamic courses come to life, while pushing the power of Unity to the limit.

The game is pretty much your average arcade racer with a heavy sci-fi spin. You have a few different ship models to chose from, including modifications you can make to each. However, it's not a super detailed simulator so you won't be choosing each individual aspect of the ship, just the major parts can be modified. And of course you can't max out every stat. So you can't have a fast, maneuverable Grav ship that's also capable of taking a ton of hits. That would just be a bit too broken.

The gravs themselves handle pretty well, though there are differences between models (only three were available to demo during GDC), but they shouldn't be too hard for anyone to pick up. While the gravs do not visibly take damage from your poor driving skills, they do have a set amount of damage they can take – from mines, rockslides, grinding on another grav, or slamming into the walls. When you hit that damage threshold, your grav is destroyed.

You can challenge your friends online or in local split-screen (with up to four players), or you can race against AI. The game will have a worldwide leaderboard, and earning top spots will net you special ranked skins for the sake of bragging rights.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Antigraviator is just how pretty it is. You wouldn't expect stunning high-fidelity graphics out of a high-speed sci-fi racing game but here you have them. The graphics of Antigravitator have won the game several awards and a special mention in the Unity 3D Game Art Challenge at GDC because they push Unity's rendering capabilities to their limits, which actually makes for some fascinating reading.

Its just a shame that you can't sit back and enjoy the scenery when cruising through the tracks at insane speeds. But if you're like me and can't make it past your own terrible driving, at least you've got some glorious scenery to comfort your inability to crank up that speed gauge.

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