A full review of the futuristic, neon-soaked, synthwave racer NeonHAT from Entalto Studios on PSVR.
NeonHAT from developer Entalto Studios lets you race through neon-drenched, vaporwave style landscapes from a unique first-person perspective like Superman enjoying a round of Wipeout on his day off, but does it take first place on the podium or is it last to cross the finish line?
First off I must say a big thanks to the developer for providing me with a review key for this game, but as always the opinions here are all my own.
The game was created in conjunction with the PS Talents initiative, bringing us new games from emerging talent in the scene and with that in mind NeonHAT is certainly not a bad first attempt from an upcoming studio.
There’s a slightly vague, text-based story holding things together, and although it’s hardly essential to the game I was still left with a few questions. What exactly does the H.A.T. in NeonHAT stand for? What does the bedroom setting at the beginning of the game mean, and even more importantly WHY ARE THERE NO DOORS IN THE ROOM?!? I guess we may never know.
The game offers up a mix of flying, racing and shooting across 9 tracks and 5 boss fight levels. Yes, that’s right, I said boss fights, but more on those later. Each of the tracks can be played at 3 different speeds, a bit like Mario Kart’s 50/100/150cc engine classes, except here you choose between Kilobyte, Megabyte and Gigabyte. Kilobyte class is a good way to get used to the controls but you’ll soon want to move up to the Megabyte and Gigabyte classes for a better sensation of speed. You can choose between Race mode, which sees you racing against AI rivals, and Pursuit mode, where you have to chase and shoot down the enemy. There’s also an Extreme Derby mode which gives you max speed and a limited health bar which once depleted means game over.
The racing is quite unusual in that you’re flying with your arms outstretched in front of you, Superman style, so as well as steering left and right you can also fly up and down within the confines of the track. In each hand you have a booster which you use to propel yourself forwards and can tilt to control your direction. As you maneuver around the bends you can hold down a button to activate a kind of drift function which also builds up a boost that kicks in when you release the button, giving you some extra acceleration as you come out of the corner. Now I love a well-done drift mechanic in regular driving games but to me the mechanic here just didn’t feel quite right or very rewarding. As you hold down the button to drift it almost feels like the framerate slows down, which is distracting, and it’s quite difficult to get the timing just right. Aside from the drift, you can also get little speed boosts by flying through the yellow rings dotted along the tracks and you really need to make the most of these to keep up with the opposition.
Progression through the game is straightforward. With only the first track available initially you have to unlock all of the others one by one, but as you only have to complete a track to unlock the next one regardless of your finishing position, it’s easy enough to do so.
So let’s talk about the boss fights I mentioned earlier. You unlock a boss fight after every couple of race tracks. These boss levels are a great diversion from the racing and I actually had the most fun with these and wish there were more of them! You get to face a variety of large boss characters, including a snake, robot and gunship. Each boss has weak points that you need to target and destroy to gradually chip away at their health bar whilst dodging their attacks. Each boss is totally unique with a different range of attacks and requiring different strategies to defeat them. After you’ve completed all the regular tracks and boss fights you also unlock a couple of special boss levels which take place as you race around a mixture of the previous tracks and are quite intense but are again, I think, more fun than the regular racing.
There’s no multiplayer, local or online, but you can play for scores on the global highscore tables, although at the time of reviewing this the scores only seemed to be working for the tutorial level.
The graphics are pretty decent and do a good job presenting a wireframe, neon world. Although the levels all have different themes and scenery the nature of the graphic style does mean they tend to look a bit samey after a while. I should mention some of the weird and wonderful things you’ll see by the trackside or flying past you, from groups of tribal dancers to toilets flying along the track! Sometimes the grid that appears when you hit the edges of the play area can be a bit annoying, particularly with some of the boss levels, as it’s quite obtrusive and prevents you from seeing what’s going on. I would have liked to see an option to make it less visible or even turn it off completely. Similarly I would have liked an option to turn off the various blue objects that fly around each track as although they’re initially useful for highlighting the turns on the track they can be distracting, particularly when you’re trying to pick out your opponents.
The music is great, with a catchy, original synthwave soundtrack setting the scene perfectly, so no complaints there. Sound on the other hand is fairly basic and could have done with being a bit beefier, especially when it comes to the lasers and explosions.
In terms of control options, although Dualshock is supported I’d say Move controllers are really the best way to play it as they allow much easier independent control over the direction of flight and the direction you want to shoot, whereas with the Dualshock you can only shoot in the direction you’re travelling. Sadly there’s almost no tactile feedback from the controllers, meaning you don’t really feel the boosts, collisions or shots.
There’s a fairly comprehensive tutorial mode at the beginning to teach you the controls but annoyingly instead of showing the Move controllers in your hands it just shows the boosters, so you can’t actually see which buttons it’s pointing to when showing you which button does what.
There are a few comfort options including being able to turn on a cockpit, which I will say has an amazingly bizarre interior featuring lace doilies and a teapot. The devs advertise that they’ve designed the motion mechanic in the game to be free of dizziness and prevent motion sickness but I’m not completely convinced that will be the case for everyone as even I felt my stomach lurch on a few occasions, so take that claim with a pinch of salt if you’re susceptible to such things.
All in all NeonHAT has some good things going for it, especially considering it’s an indie title but it lacks a certain amount of polish that a larger or more experienced studio would bring. At the current asking price of £20 it just feels a bit overpriced, especially as nowadays you can pick up a physical copy of the triple-A Wipeout or Iron Man for the same amount. Had it been cheaper then it might be easier to ignore some of the rough edges. There are some neat elements to the game and there’s not a whole lot out there like it, but unless you’re absolutely sure it’s what you’re after, then I’d suggest waiting for a sale before taking this one for a spin.
