Back in the old days, we used to love going to arcades—places with video games, in case you’re from the newer generation—and dropping coins into numerous arcade cabinets. Yet, one of our favorite types of arcade games to spend hours on was arcade racers that had players driving cars faster than they should on various tracks and courses. While the gameplay of these titles were somewhat unrealistic—okay, very unrealistic—they were just fun to spend time playing and having our blood pressure rise as we tried to win a race just as the final seconds hit. GRIP: Combat Racing from developer Caged Element Inc. and publisher Wired Productions seems to offer gamers a similar feeling of speed and vehicle mayhem that reminds us of our youthful arcade gaming days. However, does GRIP: Combat Racing truly bring back good memories or is just another wannabe arcade racer? Find out by scrolling further down to see our review of GRIP: Combat Racing for the Xbox One.

GRIP: Combat Racing throws players into an alien world filled with treacherous arenas just waiting to be run by your vehicles. Take control of several different classes of cars and play various game modes like Campaign, Time Trial, Elimination and Carkour. Level up to earn more cars and different paint/decals for your vehicle of choice and make your rides personalized so your enemies know who exactly is the king of the road. With a focus on speed and velocity, GRIP: Combat Racing is an arcade racer that will get your adrenaline pumping and your heart racing. Play alone, with a friend—split screen—or go online in GRIP: Combat Racing!

GRIP: Combat Racing has no story. Players race against others in a futuristic racing circuit where combat and speed is incentivized. Race on tracks that curve, bend, and allow for jumps that will have your car soaring. Use power ups and various other items to destroy your opponents and speed into the finish taking first place no matter what it takes. Welcome to the adrenaline rush that is GRIP: Combat Racing.

When you play a racing game, you know what you desire more than anything else? Speed, the feeling of pushing your speedometer to levels that we couldn’t do legally in real life unless you just so happen to be a professional racer. GRIP: Combat Racing gives players a glimpse at what racing could be like in the future if we were allowed to use rockets and other weapons as well as push into 400+ mph. However, GRIP: Combat Racing isn’t the first title to promise speed and we wondered if this title by developer Caged Element Inc. could give us the racing game we’ve wanted for some time. Let us find out in our review of GRIP: Combat Racing for the Xbox One.

GRIP: Combat Racing is similar to many other racing games that focus on vehicle combat. Players take control of various vehicles—all of which remind us of the RC cars from the old days—as they speed across various tracks. Players will also choose between several gameplay modes, most of which focus on either racing from point a to point b, or focus on destroying enemies or capture points. The beauty of GRIP: Combat Racing though comes from two elements though that we don’t often see in arcade racers like this one. While these two elements help propel GRIP: Combat Racing into what seems to be a great racing title, they also act as a bit of a double-edged sword.

One element that we mentioned is the cars themselves and what they can do. GRIP: Combat Racing offers players vehicles that can hit speeds of 400+ within seconds as you hit speed boosts scattered across the tracks and use various items/nitro you obtain as you race. The feeling of flying about is truly liberating in GRIP: Combat Racing and with how your cars can spin upside down and still race forward, there’s never a feeling of risk to flipping your car several times as you run off a giant jump. Unfortunately, though, this is one of the issues we mentioned in GRIP: Combat Racing. Expect a lot of crashes and missed roads on some of the tracks when you’re hitting that fictional redline. With some practice with the cars and tracks, you can acclimate yourself to avoiding a lot of these issues, but often, it means you need to slow down rather than speed up. Don’t expect the AI to do the same though as they rarely need to slow down at least on medium to higher difficulty.

Another great—and somewhat flawed—concept to GRIP: Combat Racing is the tracks themselves. Seeing as how the tracks are in an alien-like environment, GRIP: Combat Racing shows its best work when you’re in looped raceways spinning at high speeds or on broken cityscapes jumping from one road to another. With tight controls and practice, we found navigating on many of the maps to be a truly exciting thing and we loved some of the tracks more than others. Though once again, GRIP: Combat Racing has a bit of an issue with some of its track design as often maps don’t allow for the extreme racing elements we wish we could do as they often penalize players for going too fast around a bend or not learning the track layout after multiple games. This can be circumvented with a lot of practice, but even after several hours of racing, we still often found ourselves crashing off course when we began hitting high speeds and/or trying to outmaneuver the AI.

Now if there is two amazing elements to GRIP: Combat Racing, they would have to be the music and visuals. Visually, GRIP: Combat Racing is stunning with some awesome track designs and cool car models. When we hit some of the cooler locations—like the deserts or mountain areas—we were blown away by the effort the developers put into GRIP: Combat Racing’s design. The same can be said of the wonderful music within GRIP: Combat Racing. While none of the music is officially licensed tracks—at least to our knowledge—the beats and tones you’ll hear make racing immersive and truly keep your heart beat rising as you nearly dodge a wrong turn all while listening to some excellent drops in the OST.

GRIP: Combat Racing isn’t a perfect arcade racer, but don’t let our issues make you assume this is a bad game. The reality is that even with its slight flaws, GRIP: Combat Racing offers some truly fun and exhilarating racing. We loved the different modes, each providing a nice break from just regular racing but we felt the racing is what kept us mostly hooked while playing GRIP: Combat Racing. GRIP: Combat Racing is a game you’re going to have to practice playing to get really good—and avoid the numerous pains of some of the tracks and such—but once you get better, it becomes a testament to how a futuristic racing game should be. GRIP: Combat Racing isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but we think if you love arcade racing games, you’re going to like this one.

Arcade racing games seem to be coming back to life in the current gaming era and if they are all like GRIP: Combat Racing then we’re seeing signs of developers learning as creators. While GRIP: Combat Racing misses some notes here and there with its design for tracks and some of the more usual modes we see in other combat racers—we didn’t mention these as cons because they work, but they just aren’t that amazing—it still enticed us to keep playing even when we had enough to do our review for it. GRIP: Combat Racing is a good game that we think many of you should pick up for your console of choice. Are you going to nab GRIP: Combat Racing? Comment down below to let us know and share with us your reasons why. Remember to keep stuck to our hive for more game reviews and anime related articles curtsey of us here at Honey’s Anime.