After playing this little gem for around 30 hours, I am very comfortable in my assessment that this is one of the best combat racing games I have ever played

Do you still remember playing Rollcage on PS1 ? Yeah, it's the same, but better

Story
lol, nope

Atmosphere & Setting
The atmosphere is exceptional in this game. The speed of it all is completely insane at times and there is a lot happening around the player. Rockets flying everywhere, explosions, parts of the map crumbling, you actually feel your heart racing while you struggle to stay ahead of your opponents.

While the setting is very typical sci-fi stuff with little to no coherence in thematics or envoirenmental storytelling, the tracks itself have nice backgrounds and are visually distinctive so you will not get bored.

Gameplay
Ah, this is where this game shines: You start a race in one of a good dozen cars and from the get go you'll notice how fast the game is. You can easily reach speeds excessing 700 kph and more and that is not even using the higher gameplay speed where speeds above 1000 kph can be achieved. It also FEELS very fast, thanks to narrow tracks with obstacles just flying past you at that kind of speed.

What is unique to this game (well, except for the clear inspiration for this game, Rollcage) is that every car can drive upside down and is able to jump. After a certain speed threshold, your car generates enough downforce for you to drive on walls.. or the roof of a tunnel. In combination with some absolutely ridiculous track design, you will often fight and race against opponents driving somewhere above you or getting shot from below. It is incredibly fun.

There is a nice roaster of weapons and power-ups as well, which also can be fused into each other, to create stronger variants and unique weapons as well. The developers have also taken some inspiratin from the king of combat racing games Mario Kart (Yes, I am serious) and have implemented a catch up mechanic that can be disabled in multiplayer, if you so desire.

Controls
Played only with a controller, any input device beside that makes no sense in my opinion. Works great, feels great

Presentation
Pretty good, with a few drawbacks. Grip runs on the Unreal Engine 4, so in general, the game looks good. I feel that some textures could have been sharper, some geometry could have used with a bit more detail and the way textures load in while you are waiting at the start line for the race to begin really cheapens the whole presentation aspect, but I am kinda nitpicking here. While you actually play the game, everything looks great with some really cool effects and a super smooth framerate.

Soundeffects are fine and the music is great, if you are a fan of Drum n Bass or eletronic music in general. Whatever your personal feeling about this kind of music might be, it objectively is really fitting to the gameplay.

Replayability & Content
There is a surprising amount of content for the 30 € price tag: With over 20 tracks, about 15 customizable cars, several difficulty levels for the AI and game speed and several gamemodes ranging from normal races to elimination races and straight on deathmatch arenas, there is a lot of variety. Every type of race can also be played solo vs. bots, in online lobbies which also can be filled up with bots if you don't have 9 people joining in and locally with up to 4 players in split screen.

Apart from that, there is also singleplayer exclusive content like the campaign and the Carkour-tracks (yes, the pun is real) challenges which are nice but nothing groundbreaking.

The developers also promised free DLC-Tracks. So overall, there is absolutely nothing to complain about in this department.

TL;DR
PROS

• Fantastic sense of speed & urgency in races
  
• Great variety in content (tracks, Cars, weapons)
  
• Good controls
  
• Fitting and adrenaline pumping soundtrack
  
• Truly memorable racing moments to be had in multiplayer
  
• Races can be exciting and close until the very last second

CONS

• Campaign is kinda cookie cutter tournament after tournament
  
• some UI bugs
  
• Races can end with someone having an enormous lead