Inertial Drift

[charlesr]

This is bloody fantastic. Free on Games with Gold - don't miss out!

You use both sticks to steer. One for drift and the other for a tiny directional adjustment. The drifting is spot on and the tracks are very Ridge Racer.

Graphics are beautiful in a cartoony way.

Let's arrange a time when we can all play online!

[endo]

Had a decent go on this over the weekend, having never heard of it before. Pretty good innit? Almost out-Ridges Ridge, though the controls take a little getting used to. Good stuff, especially for nowt.

[charlesr]

I am trying to figure out if there's more to the handling. Obviously if you back off but still steer, it tucks in and if you then tap the brake it goes sideways. But also sometimes I felt myself staying on full right stick drift but then adjusting with the left stick mid corner which felt strange but right

[endo]

Played a bit more of this now and I'm really enjoying it. It very clearly borrows from Ridge, Auto Modellista and Initial D (among others, I'm sure), but it all comes together in a very satisfying way. Having played about with the handling a lot more last night, there's definitely nuance to it. Some corners you want to approach practically sideways by pulling the right stick all the way over and letting off the gas, whereas others you can ease into them and adjust with the left stick as you let the drift slide out. Also, controlling the drift with the right stick while staying on the gas is doable in lots of places, dabbing the brake if you need to kick the back end out a bit more. The dialogue between races goes into this more and explains things like the difference between braking and simply coming off the accelerator- the end result is pretty similar, but there are subtle differences, not least depending on the specific car.

The only - very minor - negative thus far is the dialogue you get in some races. Having the opponent pop up in the bottom left of the screen and comment on what you're doing is a bit distracting when you're trying to concentrate on driving. As I said though, a very minor annoyance, though I'm not sure if you can turn it off- haven't looked in the options.

[charlesr]

I'm on holiday and looking forward to playing some more when I return. Is there anyone playing online or is that dead?

[endo]

Haven't tried yet tbh. Might give it a whirl later today.

[endo]

Had an initial go at the online earlier and it ain't great, I'm afraid. At least my experience wasn't. Took ages to find anyone to race against and when I did, it then disconnected/they dropped at the car select stage. Next go was more successful in that it found a match almost straight away, but I was waiting for my opponent to select a car for ages (message on screen saying "waiting for opponent"). In the end, I gave up and pressed cancel and, lo and behold, I could then choose my car and off we went. Did a whole race, and it was all smooth enough, BUT the handling on the car was all off. Super stiff and very difficult to drift, at least compared to the cars I've been using in the game up to this point. Maybe it was a difficult car, but it was a bit on the extreme side if so. I worked out how to get it round the corners effectively in the end and managed to beat the other player, but it was a slog. Next few tries crapped out or couldn't find any matches. So yeah, not great so far...