Aero GPX Early Access Review
Pilots! Prepare for take-off!
Developer: Aaron McDevitt
Publisher: Aaron McDevitt
Release Date: 6th August 2024
Platform: PC
Back in March, I had briefly covered a handful of indie games currently in development and one of them was a promising high speed anti-grav racing game called Aero GPX. At the time it didn’t have a release date but in June a demo was released and earlier this month it was finally released into early access on Steam. If the demo wasn’t exciting enough then this surely is.
In its early access release, Aero GPX gives you career mode with three routes you can go through at the moment with two more coming at a later date, single player has three grand prix cups with more to come later as well, single race, time trial and practice modes, and there is a handy tutorial stage to learn all the tricks of the trade in a very clear and punctual way. There are 5 available characters from the start and going through career mode you can unlock a further 10 characters for a total of 15 characters to play as currently, with 15 more to come also at a later date. Some characters are unlocked by racing against them while others are unlocked completing set objectives and tasks such as complete the race under a set time limit. The game also promises local multiplayer and extras and unlocks later on.
Each character is creatively designed by Scotland based comic book artist Norrie Millar who brings so much personality to every character. With the exception of the top row of racers who are more standard or balanced in stats, each machine has a kind of archetype to them specialising in certain areas of control; you have those who specialise in flight, sliding, combat, and top speed. Flight specialist work best in the air and have a fun aviation design to them with Constance Gale dressed up as a bird, while sliding specialists have more slippery controls and look like street racers. Each creatively designed machine reflects these design choices with Commander Deke’s Vortex Shredder reminiscent of a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, the "Warthog", a personal favourite of McDevitt’s, and Andra Thane’s Rising Claymore looking like its sword namesake with a bloodied edge. Each character and their machines are very well designed and uniquely stands out and I can’t wait to see how the final 15 will look. During races there are sillhouettes in the race rankings hinting at who is to come, one who looks like twin characters and another a jester.
Visually the game looks fantastic and adoringly comicbook-y from top to bottom. There are a good few little customisable features in the settings such as changing the hud colours to what you please if you don’t fancy the pink and green. But the art style is beautiful to look at everywhere. The menus looks like a comic book and the game is exploding with vibrant colours and gorgeous lighting. Nighttime, sunset, or midday, doesn’t matter because that sunlight is blooming wonderfully. It is a visual treat.
And the visual splendor reaches into its gameplay as well. Each track is so uniquely and cleverly designed that it is so fun to race around every one of them all with some distinguishable visuals to them. You get night time tracks, aquatic tracks, cityscsape tracks, and maybe my favourite, tracks set around lava. Probably because of how perilous they feel. Naturally each course is designed all around speed. Build up enough speed and you get dashing speed lines all around you giving you a greater sense of how fast you’re flying off. And you can pick up some serious speed as well. I’m not skilled enough to pull it off myself, but there are clips of players pulling off absolute wizardry to exploit how the game works to rocket off at blinding speeds. It’s fantastic the potential anyone has while playing this game for how fast they can go and it is wildly satisfying.
As for how to build up speed and navigating the tracks; pink and green strips will be littered around the track with the pink strips refilling your health and green strips filling up your boost bar, as are both indicated by a heart and bolt icon. There is one track in particular, however, that doesn’t have any health strips, only one singular boost strip beckoning you to not only go as fast as possible but to be cautious as you are much more likely to crash and burn. There are of course boost pads to push you along faster as well as burning boost pads that will enhance your machine’s stats making you go even faster but at the cost of health. It’s high risk high reward to push how fast you can go. Additionally there are also bounce pads throughout certain tracks that launch you up into the air. Pressing RB or equivalent you can pull off a Drill Dive. Release the button in time just as you land and you will get a short burst of speed. And of going into the air, some tracks have wind tunnels for you to fly through with their own boost and flame pads to dash through. Using your flight specialists on these tracks you could pull off some insane flight speeds.
The controls are simply laid out and are so tight and buttery smooth it makes controlling the machines, no matter the specialty, a joy to race. You can slide and drift around, boost and brake, and dash to the sides and spin to attack other racers. And the combat on this game is vicious. If you really wanted, even without a combat specialist machine as I had found with Ash Behemel’s Devil Dagger who is a top speed specialist, you can be as violent to other racers as much as you want and it is so satisfying annihilating other machines and jeopardising their grand prix dreams.
But the combination of these controls and tracks makes for tremendous gameplay that is easy to learn yet difficult to master. Each track gradually gets more difficult and challenging to navigate and I wonder just how punishing the final tracks will be. As for the AI it is appropriately fair, although I have not been brave enough to try the hardest ace pilot difficulty yet, but I heartily believe it will test your absolute limits. Overall, the gameplay is all fairly balanced across difficulties. For novices it’s none too harsh on you, but for F-Zero/Wipeout veterans it will test your skills nicely on the harder difficulties.
The sound design is appropriately light and airy, all simple yet very effective. It’s nice and it works very well. The announcer voice is fun and playful as he gears you up to race. My only complaint about the sound is the machines. They sound more like whispering winds than screaming typhoons, which I feel they deserve to be. It isn’t bad by any means and it does match F-Zero and Wipeout, I just need to hear them be a little meaner and roaring through the tracks. Let these beastly machines sing.
The soundtrack by Myrone is glorious. It’s a great mix of Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Van Halen, Slayer, Megadeth, 80's and 90's video games like Mega Man and TMNT and as such some Tee Lopes, and an appropriate dash of F-Zero. It adds so much to the tone of the game, the speed it builds up as you race building that anticipation and adrenaline, and above all it’s just so much fun to listen to. It brings me so much joy and excitement. Like racing around upside down with lava directly over your head while Springrind shreds away I get very giddy. I demand everyone to give the soundtrack a listen.
While Nintendo twiddle their thumbs on how to come up with a new F-Zero game, Aaron McDevitt has delivered a wonderfully challenging and wildly fun anti-grav racer, and we’re still in the early stages. With more to do and unlock on the career path, more grand prixs to race, and more characters to unlock and extras to come, I think we’re in for a real treat by the end of this game’s development cycle. And I do not believe McDevitt will be sitting around idly until it is complete. Optimistically I would figure in a year’s time we’ll have everything for a complete game, but for now as it stands there is plenty enough for you to do and time enough to practice and hone your piloting skills. It’s hard to pick out faults with the game at it’s current stage, especially as more updates will come that will probably fix those very minor nitpicks. However, for where this game is now you can already see this game for what it is; a tremendously fun and exciting time that is so well designed with a lot of passion put into it.
Oh, and just imagine how chaotically good fun multiplayer will be!
Where to Purchase:
Steam: Available right here for £16.75/$19.99!