Since the glory days of the Atari, developers have released basic racing games to mixed results. Some are good for a few minutes of fun while others are addicting to the point they should be classified as a narcotic. The recent Lightfield falls somewhere in between.

With a visual style similar to Tron, you’ll pilot a space ship of sorts that cannot only fly, but snaps onto the walls, floor or ceiling of a level and turn into what appears to be a motorcycle. This is a fairly simple mechanic, as any of the face buttons will allow you to attach the vehicle to the floating bits of track. This applies a significant boost to your speed which is needed to keep up with the AI or other players.

This does pose a bit of an issue when you are faced with the track running into a 90 degree angle, which requires a bit of practice to remove yourself from the track and pull up to hopefully reattach and not slam into the wall, bursting into flames. Additionally, I had issues with running off the track and being propelled into flight mode, which resulted in getting off the beaten track and losing a pretty substantial amount of time. While you can fly around the level as you please, you have absolutely no chance of winning or even keeping up with the other racers in this mode.

Falling behind in Lightfield will generally result in taking a loss or needing to start the race over, as the AI is pretty hardcore, even on the lowest difficulty. Having failed to even place in the top 3 on easy, I have yet to try the harder difficulties, but assume they are somewhere between being raped by a pack of rabid baboons and visiting the dentist.

The game also features a time attack mode which is essentially an endless run where you can repeat laps on one of the games tracks, with AI included, to see where you stack up on the leaderboard as well as earn experience, which will unlock additional tracks. Earning experience is a bit of a grind, as you receive this in small increments for picking up crystals that are grouped throughout the level as well as completing races and passing checkpoints. With only a single track open at the start of the game, you will have to run more than 10 laps on the same small track to earn enough to unlock the next level. This adds up when trying to unlock all seven of the game’s tracks available at launch.

Each track I explored does feature a number of shortcuts as well as alternate paths that you or other racers can unlock by hitting floating cubes on the track. While you can’t shoot turtle shells out of the rear of the vehicle, it is a satisfying way to take down other racers in the event you are in the lead.

Sadly, vehicle customization or options are lacking, as everyone uses the same means of transportation around the level, only with different colors. Each leaves a trail of the vehicles color which will allow you to follow a particular racer if you are looking for an opportune moment to take them out.

The game does currently feature an online mode, but as of the time of this writing, it’s exclusive to player matches without a matchmaking option. The delveoper has confirmed that this will be added in a future update. In addition to the online offering, up to 4 players can race split screen locally, which is buried within the menus.

While it’s not the worst racing game offered on the Xbox One, Lightfield is light on content and becomes repetitive quickly. The only saving grace is the accessible controls and split screen option, which is lacking from most of the console’s other racing games.

 

5 out of 10

Pros

• Fun Concept
• Accessible Controls

Cons

• Lack of Content
• Once You’re Behind, You Stay There
• Grinding Needed to Unlock All Tracks

Lightfield was developed and published by Lost in the Garden. It was released on September 26th, 2017 on PS4 and X1 for $19.99. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Lightfield, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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