Developer: Milkbag Games
Publisher: Milkbag Games
Reviewed on: PlayStation 4 Pro
Code Received.
When I first laid eyes on FutureGrind, I was trying to process what it was trying to be. Was it a Trials clone? A Tony Hawk clone? OlliOlli clone? Well, in fact, it’s actually all of those to some degree, and that’s truly an amazing thing.
The gist of it is, you’re in control of a Grinder, a futuristic stunt vehicle. Your Grinder is equipped with two wheels; each having a different color. Your goal is to make it to the end of a track consisting entirely of colored rails: For example, the red wheel can grind on red rails, the blue wheel can grind on blue rails, and the white rails are wheel-agnostic. Touch the wrong wheel to the wrong rail and you explode, forcing you to start the level all over again. Touching a white rail resets any combo you’ve amassed over the course. Combined with a jetpack that lets you double or even triple jump and hover, the finished product is a very well done, fast-paced, stunt-driven 2D/3D survival racer, focused entirely on chaining together tricks, pulling off stunts and not dying.
As far as the story goes, it’s practically nonexistent. That’s not totally a bad thing though, but the game wouldn’t feel like any less of a package if there was no dialogue whatsoever. There are a total of five Grinders, each with their own unique traits. Each bike has their fair share of levels, each being very well made. The music in the levels, and the sound effects are fantastic. The original soundtrack is so catchy, I found myself adding it to my personal playlist.
The game can be pretty challenging, so for the gamers out there wanting a “chill” time with the game, you may appreciate the fact that the developers decided to add in an “Assist Mode”. What assist mode does is, it allows you to play stress free and actually have both of your Grinders wheels set to passive, meaning if your blue wheel touches a red rail, you won’t explode and fail the level. You will, however, still reset your combo by touching a white rail. The only obstacles you will have to worry about are falling off of the level, and some hazards that show up in the later levels. Also another cool addition they added in was a Colorblind mode. While a lot of games have colorblind options, it’s just very nice to see in a game that utilizes specific colors so heavily and having it integrated into the objective of the game.
FutureGrind also features Score Attack, which is a neat addition for some leaderboard bragging. At the time of this writing, however, there’s no one currently on there. Also, if you are looking to get a spot on the leaderboard, Assist Mode will have to be disabled if you are using it.
For a game that’s been in development for almost a 5 years, Milkbag Games has managed to deliver on a really fun, unique take on a genre that’s actually been around for quite a while now. FutureGrind, for me, has filled some of that void where the goal is just to have mindless, endless amounts of fun. In an ever growing industry of games trying to take themselves too seriously, it’s an extremely nice break. Here’s hoping there will be future (pun intended) missions and maybe some more bikes added. Now I’ll be going back and playing some more myself.
