Drift City Re-Review: Cell Shaded Awesomeness
By Umar Farooq (Kluey), OnRPG Journalist
Drift City, now owned by Games Campus is a Cell Shaded Online racing game combined with RPG elements. Its unique play style gives it variety while still maintaining the racing game aspect. Drift City is also known as Skid Rush in Korea. The game offers a lot of unique content, some of which are: Leveling up your character, customizing vehicles, racing with other players, doing missions, and doing quests, a delivery service, instances and much more.
Story:
Drift City, unlike most MMO racing games, has a story. You are in the future and you have no oil. You magically find a new island with this amazing resource on it. It’s called… Mittron! This new resource powers every mode of transportation. You try it out in a car and it you realize, that its pure steroids for your car. Your car is running faster, cleaner and longer! The world leaders are taking advantage of this resource and decide to start importing it.
Like every good story, there are some bad guys. In this case they are the HUVs. They terrorize the streets of Mittron Island and are disrupting the flow of things on the Island. You are then hired as an OMD driver. At the start you might be delivering doughnuts but later on, you might find yourself hunting down HUVs.
Starting your career!
Drift City has one world with two channels. They are both equally busy unlike most games where the first channel is much more populated. You have a selection of 4 different cars at the beginning along with a character picture. The tutorial is very easy to follow and takes you through a lot of content. Getting into your first race is also part of the tutorial. Getting into a race is extremely easy. You head to the Battle Zone and choose a race. To avoid experienced players stomping new players, there is a lobby system. It starts with Tutorial and goes onto Amateur and so on.
Graphics and Audio:
The graphics are amazing. They are very different from the best selling racing games like Gran Turismo or Need for speed. They have more of a cartoon feel to them rather than a realistic feel. You can easily run Drift City on almost any computer. The only complaint for graphics I might have is the time change in the game. It goes from day to night in nothing.
The music was actually pretty pleasing. I don’t think you have the ability to change it as you would in a game like HEAT online but the default music is nice. The sound effects aren’t too shabby either. Although there might be some glitches in where a little touch brings up a sound of a huge crash.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is easy to get use to. There is a lot of ways to earn Mittron (the currency in Drift City) and XP which insures that you will always have something to do. When I started this game, I thought it be a “Do as many races as you can in a day” kind of game but I was proven wrong. You can drive around in the city getting quests from different stations. You also get hired as a Delivery Person early in the game. Each delivery you make gives you XP and Mittron. Some deliveries are actually very challenging. You have a time limit and sometimes even a crash limit. If you crash more than a certain number of times, you fail the mission.
The races in Drift City are very different than your usual race with a ton of laps. The highest amount of laps I have ever had to do was 3. Each race only lasts about 4 minutes at most but is full with suspense and action. Every so often there is a checkpoint gate. Once you go through it you have a chance of being rewarded with some sort of boost. Some can be as low as 50% boost or as good as the Invincible Rush Boost (In the picture below). Sometimes these rewards can even change the outcome of a race.
The RPG Element:
Drift City has a decent RPG side to it. It is more of a single player mode but still very enjoyable. There is a huge world outside of the tiny battle dome you start in. The world has traffic, street lights and even some places you can access. Around the city there are 4 stations. Each one has different missions and objectives you have to complete. Some are a breeze while some are extremely difficult to get a gold medal on. You are rewarded from each mission/quest with Mittron and XP. Mittron can be used to buy better parts or cars while XP is needed to be able to buy more advanced items.
Drifting Like a Boss:
The drifting in this game is awesome. It is extremely fun to do and easy to pull off. There is not a certain car you must have or a certain amount of practice to pull off a drift. You learn the move in the tutorial and in every race you see you are drifting more precisely and much more quickly.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Drift City is an awesome game if you like an easy to play game. If you are looking for an extremely competitive game, Drift City is not for you. Its unique RPG elements give it a different feel from normal Racing Games. The graphics are not super realistic and detailed but are fun and appealing. If you are looking to kill some time and relax, Drift City is the perfect game for you.
Pros:
– Fun Graphics
– Easy to play, get familiar with.
– No lag/choppiness at all. Very smooth gameplay
– A nice storyline
– A lot of things to do. You’re always busy.
Cons:
– Later levels you don’t get too much more to do. The quests usually have the same objectives but are a bit harder.
– Not much to customize and call your own.
– Apart from clans and guilds, there’s not much things that require teamwork.
