Grip – Review

Grip by Caged Element is an arcade racer built as a tribute to Roll Cage brought to the gaming community by Psygnosis in 1999, the same guys who brought fast-paced futuristic space racer Wipeout.

It conjures memories, for those that are old enough, of the Tyco Rebound; the remote control car with wheels so large it could flip over and still drive upside down as that it the premise here.

Grip gives several retro vehicles with huge wheels, designed to drive at blistering speeds and massive downforce allow you to drive traverses the walls and ceilings of the industrial race tracks. This game also features weapons, the tracks are littered with Mario Cart inspired weapon pickups which allow you to take out opponents and gain places by launching missiles, pepper with Gatling guns but also defensive shields and speed boost.

The tracks are littered with speed boost points which encourage you to move your car between the floor, walls, and ceilings to try and get an advantage over your opponents, the problem is that they aren’t as good as the speed boosts offered by the floating collectibles which are often in easier to reach locations.

The game has a multi-tiered, tournament style campaign in which the opponents get progressively harder and weapon pickups play more of a factor with early races offering speed boosts only. Don’t be expecting any sort of story here or in-fact anything other than a simple menu to select your next race from. It’s pretty boring with multiplayer offering a bit more excitement. What is good about this game is that you can play 4 player split screen which reminds me of sessions on the sofa after college with my pals before online multiplayer gaming was so accessible.

The graphics are ok but nothing impressive to see here, the industrial looking race tracks are pretty bland and I know it’s supposed to but really does look like a 90’s game. The game does have other modes such as an arena but the driving mechanics don’t really work here and fees a bit clunky.

It’s not fair for me to give this game a score, I never played RollCage and this game was never going to strike any core of nostalgia; this game is designed to do just that and has been built for the for the cult following who spent hours in split screen blasting their mates off the ceiling, but, for anyone else this game not going to excite and can feel like a chore. For me, this game is a resurrection from the 90s and quite frankly that’s where it should have stayed.