Take puzzles, racing, platforming, soccer, bowling and pool - add gorgeous graphics, loads of craziness and great fun!
Amazingly, Gripshift is now one of my most played games for the PSP. The challenge mode sees you having to drive round courses either finishing in a set time or collecting all the stars and items to collect medals. These medals help you unlock more tracks and game modes. The other modes (of which there are loads) include race mode, time trials, the mini games, multiplayer and a fully fledged track editor. Challenge mode gets hard and frustrating, but the appeal of GS is that you can quickly jump into another mode to ease your stress before giving it another shot. It's pick up and play nature allows for short 3 or 4 minute attempts - but also provides enough to do for a longer hour play session.
The driving itself is bizzarre - don't expect realistic car handling here. But its what sets GS apart really. The cars can turn in the air, accelerate in the air, flip, turn, spin - basically its just crazy! But it works; it works because it allows the race modes to be fun while also allowing crazy platforming levels to be forgiving and enjoyable. The developers really nailed the controls well. The analogue nub steers, X accelerates, [ ] brakes, O fires powerup and R boosts, pretty standard and work fine.
Levels take place around 4 difficulty settings (progressively) and several varied graphical locations. The graphics are beautiful, but seeing as the game was made and designed for PSP, this is probably what we should be seeing! All credit to the developers for making it look so great though. Levels range from the desert, snow to a haunted looking world and although it does become a bit samey, its the tracks that are the best design feature. Tracks include allsorts of crazy obstacles too - jumps, traps, bombs, teleporters, really fun and varied puzzles can be made from these, not to mention some downright crazy courses.
The mini games to keep you playing include penguin bowling, snaker (snake clone in 3D), bomb billiards and soccer (to name a few). They are great games in their own right to be honest, and it's nice to see mini games that I actually feel I enjoy when i play them (rather than an afterthought shoved in for no real reason - like FIFA on PSPs mini game!)
The track editor is stunning and a feature that sets this title apart. Got bored with all the tracks in the game? Because you can make your own and even share them with your friends. It's really easy to use and you can add/set almost anything into your levels. Personally, im a big fan of creative features like this and once again, the developers deserve a huge amount of praise for not only including this, but for making it so user friendly and powerful at the same time. Brilliant stuff.
So great playability, lovely graphics, good music and sound effects (some music is really nice, I must mention) and theoretically limitless replay value thanks to the track editor mean than this budget priced title is, in my opinion, one of the best PSP titles available. If you haven't yet given this a go, it's well worth it and comes massively reccomended!