BlazeRush... I had so high hopes for this one. It looks fantastic and the reviews were very positive. Are you a keyboard player? Prepare to be frustrated. Do you use older style non twin-stick controlers? Well FUCK YOU then.

It's been a while since a game would not work with my game pad. Normally xPadder or x360ce solves the issue. Despite spending far longer than I normally do, I could not get them working in this game. Which is a shame, as it would play fantastically if it did so.

Aside from that, no other issues popped up. The game runs smooth and everything feels highly polished.

The best way to describe the game is a mix of games like Death Rally (Classic) and Micro Machines. It's an isometric racer with various vehicles and a non rotatable camera. Tank controls are in, up is accelerate, and it works well enough though every vehicle I tried felt like it was over-steering. This may be down to having to resort to the keyboard.

Race a few laps around a track against pre-set enemies of various other vehicles, boosting and shooting+ your way through the course. On Career Mode each course will have several objectives to earn 'Cups' as a progression system. Getting more cups unlocks more courses. All I found were 1/2/3 place cups, and a few special ones. Such as racking up an in game score, killing 'x' number of NPCs, or using weapons in unique ways.

There's also vanity medal awards for pulling off cool moves. They don't provide anything other than an ego boost if not part of a course objective, but it is fun seeing how many you can get each round.

There's a few alternative levels where you have a time attack. Either the devs had some terrific Q&A/Testers or they've been playing a lot of genre games in the past, you can restart <2 seconds. No wasting time pointlessly mashing buttons to retry once you realised you screwed up.

This really helped getting the time attack Nitro courses out in under six attempts or so. I know from past experience that patience wears thin on these when you are trying to meet all the objectives for the track.

Cars each have a different driver, this does nothing aside from being purely cosmetic. There's no character to the people. The vehicles however, are wonderfully varied and styled with various stats.

Mass effects the weight of the vehicle. The ability to be nudged and the amount of momentum it carries. Acceleration is, obviously, how lon git takes you to get max speed. And Handleability affects steering.

Light floaty vehicles look light and floaty. Heavy slower vehicles look like they have decent weight to them. There's a fair amount of effort that has gone into the look f this one and it is really appreciated that they're just not all reskins.

Environments are great too. Junkyard, Mayincatec Forest, and Alien Biome all have their own mode and feeling. While it does not really affect the course aside from amount of visual feedback on the screen, the three different zones have the same level of care put into them as the vehicles do.

The downside of all of this is that there is a huge amount of visual feedback on the screen. Explosions, bullets, and funky looking environments draw the eye away from the screen.

A lot of the problem is that the camera is not focused on the player, but zooms in and out depending on how separated the various drivers are. This is part of the game's design, as getting too far behind will blow up your vehicle and respawn you further along the track. Coupled with the fact you only have a tiny red triangle indicator and loose controls it is easy to lose your place on the screen and drop to 4th in seconds.

It also uses some of the horrible Nintendo racer style ideas to keep things competitive. Personally, I don't find it fun when my place in 1st is kicked to last to make things 'fun', 'fair', or 'competitive'. Or whatever bollocks excuse game devs use for these games. You never feel like you are getting ahead in the game and are constantly racing to get back in the lead.

I know people like "Blue Shell" and Last Place Boost rules, but they're my Monopoly to people who get into year long breakups over that particular board game.

The AI is also reasonably stupid. While it is nice to see the computer make mistakes just like a Human would, enemy vehicles bumble around the track and cluster together a little too often for me.

I really, really wanted to like Blaze Rush. The game is rather fantastic.

I know most of my concerns come from not being able to use my game pad of choice, but I just can't tolerate using twin-sticks and the x360 controller. Growing up with the mighty TAC-2 and finding my limit with the Saturn 3D pad, the post 32bit controller layout just works against me. No matter how long I practice with them (Yet I'm fine with the keyboard and all the keys on that!).

If you are not into this style of competitive racer I'd really say it is best to skip it.

Aside from the PC it is also out on the PS4, and honestly as a party racer game would work far better there. It's the old school couch style of play. Introverts like myself who Solo at a PC can get through it, but I think it misses out on a lot of the fun with this one.

If you like this genre and have a controller the game supports and can use it. What the hell are you doing? The game is great for what it is trying to do, go grab a copy if you have not already!

Game Acquisition: Purchased on sale (Bundle Stars)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 25 March 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009

OS: Windows XP SP3
Processor: 2.0 Ghz Intel Pentium-4 / AMD Athlon II
Memory: 1 GB RAM Graphics: 256 MB NVidia / AMD Radeon / Intel (HD 3000, HD 4000) with support for Pixel Shader 3.0 (AMD Radeon X1000 not supported)
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 1 GB available space