Rise: Race The Future is a realistic/futuristic racing game developed and published by VD-Dev. Rise: Race The Future is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and PC. For this review, the game was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch
This game has three different game modes. “Challenges” mode is the first mode to select. In this mode, you complete challenges on different courses. Each course can have multiple challenges/objectives to accomplish. The challenges can be stuff like Stay in the first position, Finish second or better, Don’t finish last, Never be overtaken, Finish the race faster than four minutes, Don’t use boost, Finish third or better, Lap faster than fifty-seven seconds, Finish before a certain car, Hit 212 Km/h, and more. Once you complete enough challenges, you will unlock the next season in the game. As you complete more objectives, you gain more and more fans. Eventually, you can have a massive fanbase. Each season seems to have a different theme in this game. There is a diverse set of maps and locations.
In the “Championship” mode you compete in 8 different championships. In order, the championships are Rise Welcome Championship, Champion Of The Mist, The Ultimate Lap, NR1 Drivers’ Cup, Aqua Racing, Big Car Confrontation, Sunset R.I.C Series, and Ionos World GP. To unlock and participate in these championships, you have to get third place or better in a championship before it. At the rookie difficulty, some of these championships can actually be quite hard. If you crash into a wall or mess up in any other way, it is really difficult to recover. At the very beginning of the race is when you have any margin for error.
“Time Attack” is the last and final game mode. This game mode is exactly what it sounds like, a time attack game mode. In this game mode, you try to get the best lap time you can in each course. You unlock courses in time attack by getting third place or better in championships. In Time Attack, you have the option of turning on a ghost of yourself. This ghost will replicate your exact path of your best time. If you are ahead of the ghost, you will know you are set to get another best time in a certain course. This game mode has infinite replay ability. Getting a best time and trying to one up yourself never gets old.
The gameplay of the game itself is fine, but it could be a lot better. Playing the game with Joycons feels good. The same can be said about playing this game docked with a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. The controls at some points do feel weird though. Every once in awhile, you can get a feeling that you’ve briefly lost control of a car. The water sections of the maps is the Achilles heel of the whole entire game. Driving on the water itself feels strangely odd. The turning completely changes on water. The game becomes a lot harder during these sections. On the water is where I was most likely to mess up a whole entire race. The game and courses overall would be a lot better without these water sections in my opinion. Some courses become as hard as Dark Souls due to the water!
Graphically, the game looks great. Although I can’t say for sure, the game seems to be running at native 720p in handheld mode. For docked mode, I can’t say for sure what resolution the game runs at, but either way, it looks good. The visuals are pretty realistic. Based on my experience, there was no sign of frame rate dips or any issues along those lines.
Online multiplayer is something Rise: Race The Future could greatly benefit from. Unfortunately, this component is completely lacking from the game. There is no way to race with your friends or random folks online. Online multiplayer feels like a given, especially since its a traditional racing game. Hopefully in a future racing title by VD-Dev, multiplayer is available.
Overall this game has its issues, but in the end it is a good game. This take on the futuristic racing genre is very unique, and more realistic to what we may be able to expect in our future. For the price of $16.49, it is well worth the money for anyone seeking a realistic/futuristic arcade racer to pick up and play at home or on the go. There is enough content to justify that price. Despite the lack of online multiplayer, I would recommend this game.
