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Antigraviator – the title is a bit of a mouthful, but in short, we need a Wipeout game on the PC, and while this gets there to a degree, it needs some work.
Firstly, DO get a controller for your PC if you haven’t already. An Xbox One controller will work fine, since the keyboard controls are pretty bad – W to accelerate, A and D to move/barrel-roll left or right, shift to air-brake and the up/down arrow keys for boost and drop traps for other other ships, so your fingers are all over the place!
A controller layout is much more manageable. However… kudos to Cybernetic Walrus for making this blistering fast, like Wipeout should be. Their recommended specs for playing in 60fps are a core I7 processor (check!), 16Gb RAM (check!) and a GTX1060 graphics card. Mine is a GTX980, so still no small feat. As such, the visuals on my system ran like an absolute breeze.
The problem? They’re fast and furious, but they’re TOO fast! So much so that I kept crashing into the sides, and even though there were 7 AI ships on the track, one of which I managed to get rid of somehow, the rest all shot ahead and I never caught them up, so I may as well have been playing on my own, which rather takes the fun and the challenge out of it.
Note that for the videos I’ve uploaded, any glitches are down to nVidia’s Shadowplay just not catching up quickly enough. Or because I’ve got the game on max settings and maybe I should’ve dialled them down slightly. Rest assured, it all slips by buttery-smooth.
Also, you’re pretty much just going along the same track 99% of the time in each individual race. There’s occasional times when you’re leaving one bit of track to land on another, a few seconds later, but I wanted to catch some serious air AND smash through things. None of that here.
When it comes to the audio, it’s fairly standard. Shooting, zooming about etc are okay, while the dance track pumps along in the background, but there’s nothing iconic to what you hear such as Wipeout‘s use of tracks by The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and more.
There’s also an online mode, but while another of our reviewers, Iain Metcalf, tried this during the test runs, he played one match, then it loaded the next track and kept jumping to the title screen. After this happened four times, he had to call it a day with that.
He also makes the point that, unlike Wipeout, there’s no onscreen map of the track, so you have NO idea where either you or the others are. This, again, adds to that feeling of being alone. Olive once sang that you’re not alone, but… when it made No.1 in 1997, she hadn’t played Antigraviator.
Finally, while there’s an option to select B for laying a trap for an enemy, it didn’t seem to work – or if it did, it made no difference. Besides, if the opposition have all shot off ahead, there’ll be no-one to get trapped!
If you stick with it, then there are options to customise/upgrade your ships – the sort of thing you expect in most games, but if you’re not hooked by it, then you won’t go in for all that.
Hence, this is worth 5/10. Looks amazing, but while it satiates your need for speed, it doesn’t do that for your need to compete. Normally, I’d give a breakdown of graphics, sound, gameplay and enjoyment, but I think you’ve got the impression of where I’m at with this.
Score: 5/10
Antigraviator is out now PC/Steam.
Important info:
- Developer: Cybernetic Walrus
- Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
- Players: single-player, multiplayer
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.