Star Wars: Galactic Racer review – An essential arcade racer

If you love arcade racing games, Star Wars: Galactic Racer is essential. It’s as simple as that. But I imagine you want to know more. Let’s start by stating that it feels like Burnout and WipEout have been put into a blender, with some roguelike elements thrown in for a bit of pizazz. And if that doesn’t have you intrigued, I don’t know what will.

Jump into Star Wars: Galactic Racer and you’ll find that it does away with the standard career mode found in other racers. Instead, it’s all about runs. Much like Carmageddon: Rogue Shift released earlier this year, you’re presented with a map of events, with your aim being to reach the end of them taking any route you’d like. It requires some thought, though, because some events may be more challenging or lucrative than others.

When it comes to standard races, for example, you just need to cross the finish line without crashing so many times that your vehicle is wrecked. Elimination events, on the other hand, will quickly end your run unless you manage to not to be eliminated, making them more risky. Depending on your performance, at the end of each race you’ll be rewarding with credits, tuning points, upgrade points and perhaps even parts, all helping you to develop your vehicle so that you might have a better chance of achieving your goal.

And what is your goal? Making it to the Galactic League and beating Kestar Bool, the ruthless champion who needs to be brought down a peg or two. You’ll need to complete numerous tours to see the campaign of Star Wars: Galactic Racer through, though, and that will require many, many runs. But even when you fail, your time never feels wasted thanks to a permanent progression system that allows you to unlock new vehicles, upgrades, potential perks, and more.

In the campaign, you’ll find that three vehicle types are available to you: landspeeders, speeder bikes and skim speeders. Each have their own unique traits and physics, so it’s worth trying them all to see which best suits your playstyle. You’re able to customise your chosen vehicle, too, switching out parts and selecting a livery to create something that’s unique to you. You’ll also choose a racing style at the start of each run, determining your starting ability and more. One of the earliest racing styles available, for example, allows you to crash one more time during an event before getting wrecked, and also enables you to turn on autopilot for a short amount of time.

But Star Wars: Galactic Racer has much more to offer than its runs-based campaign. There’s an Arcade mode, for example, where you can complete a range of pre-set events: you might find yourself podracing against a set of opponents, or drifting around a track in a landspeeder in order to set the fastest time you can. As you progress through the game’s campaign and unlock new racing styles, which determines the starting abilities available to you and more, you’ll unlock Scenarios, which task you with completing a string of events in a similar roguelike fashion.

Throw in multiple online multiplayer modes, and the only real disappointment here is that there isn’t a more standard Arcade mode to enjoy, allowing you to set up your own events. Some might be annoyed at the fact there’s there’s no local split-screen multiplayer option, either, but given how pretty Star Wars: Galactic Racer looks, it’s somewhat understandable. But whichever way you look at it, you can’t say that this is a game light on content – there’s so much to see and do here, and the act of racing is simply wonderful.

As already stated, the racing action here very much feels like WipEout crossed with Burnout, with you racing around quite open tracks in antigravity vehicles that move at considerable speed. There’s also a considerable emphasis on drifting and boosting, with two boost systems being available. Both of these systems charge automatically, though while one of them provides a short amount of boost, the other is more prolonged but comes with the risk of your vehicle exploding if you take things a little too far.

Add in a variety of abilities like shields to protect you from damage, a range of hazards to consider such as pools of acid, and a combat elements which allows you to crash onto opponents in the hopes of taking them down, and you have an arcade racer that’s fast, fluid, a true treat for the eyes, and fun from the very moment you get into your first event.

One of the best arcade racing games in years, it doesn’t matter if you like Star Wars or not – if you want to race fast, boost at every opportunity, drift around corners like a pro and occasionally bash into your competitors to take them down, Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a must have. This is an outrageously impressive debut for developer Fuse Games, which demonstrates that there very much still is a future for the arcade racing genre. And now I can’t wait to see what the studio does next.