Hope you have a very strong keyboard - especially the space bar...
Sky Roads is a car racing game with a twist. Yes, you drive your futuristic car on a road to reach the finish line however the twist is that the road is actually in space with elevated platforms to serve as roads. It involves very simple commands of left, right, forward, backwards and the spacebar to jump. There are no opponent cars to race nor time however two elements of oxygen and fuel replaces this.
The roads are very similar to the Amiga game Stunt Car Racer however they are colour coded so care needs to be taken (e.g. blue = replenish oxygen/fuel, red means fire); and the way the platforms are designed it can take a serious array of jumping and memorising as some tracks can look very deceiving (e.g. the tunnel you enter can suddenly end to a brick wall which you cannot see but soon realise when the explosion occurs).
There are in total thirty roads to complete separated in groups of three hence ten divisions. To pass one road leads to the next and so on. Some roads are extremely easy and some are just painfully evil. However once completed a dot is placed next to the completed road to the maximum of seven dots so it indicates that there is no fluke of you passing that road!
The backdrop of Skyroads is very stunning. Ranging from Read Heat (the Sun) to Misty (my favourite - try passing this at maximum speed and look at the hypnotic road patterns...) to the deadly Earth and the jumping maniac Druidia. Apparently all roads can be completed (at the time of the review I have completed all the roads except Druidia road 3 and believe me I am not alone in this...) so the challenge is there!
The music score is nothing short but brilliant as it suits the style of game however the sound effects are quite basic; basic but not overdone so it's a good thing.
There only 'real' downside to this game is that the car (spaceship) when moving left to right, the screen literally is fixed at the centre so at times you see the car close to the edges of the screen. You wish that the window will follow the car however over time you will get used to the idea and adds more to the challenge. Also even though the overall design of the game looks simplistic (i.e. the graphics and sounds) I feel it's actually constructed well as if more was added then it will look extremely clustered which will deter the actual game play.
Overall, Skyroads is a very challenging and addictive game yet enjoyable to play. The concepts of floating roads, different colour platform patterns and some crazy jumping makes this game a blast to play and yes even colourblind people (like me) can enjoy this. Too bad that there are not many zany games like this in today's market (save the Trackmania series). It looks like the many FPS games is following the trend of the millions of platform games of the eighties/early nineties. Will there be another revolution like 1993?