Nitelore brings anti-gravity racing back to iOS this month
It's been a long wait for another hover racer
- Anti-gravity racing returns on iPhone
- Four modes, including Death Race
- Unlock and upgrade ships
Some genres fade out. The anti-gravity racer did not fade - it just stopped, somewhere around the point where everybody decided a racer needed a licensing deal with a real manufacturer. I’ve been annoyed about that for years and Nitelore is the first thing in a while to do anything about it.
I put a rather embarrassing share of my PSP's battery life into Wipeout. Not the racing, particularly. The feeling of it, air brakes biting into a corner hard enough to shove you sideways, the ship carrying weight it had no business carrying, tracks you end up learning in your hands before your head. That is a very specific sensation and almost nothing has offered it since.
Nitelore arrives on iOS on August 15th, built by one developer. This is Wipeout with the serial numbers left visible. You race through future cities, volcanic plains, lunar surfaces, raging seas and, at some point, a colossal star.
There are four modes here. Elimination detonates the last-placed ship every twenty seconds, which turns a race into a rolling execution queue. Death Race abandons the pretence and arms everybody. Grand Prix runs full seasons across cups and leagues, and Time Attack puts you against the ghost of your own best lap. Ships unlock and upgrade as you go, each handling differently.
The anti-grav racer was always half a music format, arriving with a Prodigy track attached and a logo nobody could read, and the speed never quite worked without it. Nothing in the announcement mentions the soundtrack. That is the first thing I will be checking. Please don’t disappoint me, Nitelore.
As for my PSP, it can stay in the drawer. It has done its bit.
Our list of the best racing games on iOS covers the rest of the grid, most of which are still stuck on tarmac.
