Welcome back to Save State, where I’ve randomly been on a futuristic racing game kick. After playing F-Zero GX a couple of weeks ago, I found myself looking into its other competitors in the genre that were made more recently. I’ve played a large number of racers like this before, most of the Wipeout series, Redout, and loads of indies like Fast RMX. My search led me to Aero GPX, which was released in Early Access just last month on Steam. An anti-gravity racer with tracks that toss you into the air for a mid-track flight, this particular title nails the controls, which is a huge issue I’ve had with other titles like Redout, for example, which made me spend multiple hours figuring out its control scheme’s quirks before actually enjoying the fun racing game.
Aero GPX looks as if it took a lot of inspiration from F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64, of which the art style and music seem to also take a lot of their inspiration. There’s a simple career mode, which tasks you to clear courses in various difficulties across three divisions, currently, which function as cups in other racing games. Most stages are grand prix style, where it’s you against multiple racers in a rush to first place, though some stages will require you to use a specific ship or participate in a duel against a single opponent. After earning enough tickets from wins, you’ll be able to move onto the next division and challenge the tracks there.
You could also just race in standard single player modes, doing a whole cup, single race, or time trial by yourself to improve your knowledge of the tracks. Local multiplayer is, unfortunately, not yet available for Aero GPX, but it hopefully will come in an update soon. Beyond that, you have a great number of pilots you can unlock, who each come with their own racing machines with differing statistics. A lot of effort was put into the title to make the characters look visually distinct from one another, and you’ll unlock each of the characters from career mode as you progress.
As for how Aero GPX plays, it controls a lot like F-Zero GX. Maneuvering your ship is a breeze, and anyone who has played an F-Zero title in the past will likely be able to pick this up and clear tracks on standard or expert difficulty with ease. It’s you against many opponents, and there are booster pads on the ground of the tracks you can hit for a speed boost, while boost energy and health recovery strips are also on contested parts of the track, too. One major difference from F-Zero GX is that your ship’s health and boost aren’t the same gauge in this game- so you’ve got to be a fair deal more proactive to attack and destroy opposing ships.
When it comes to major differences between Aero GPX and the F-Zero titles, there haven’t been too many changes to mess with the formula here. As mentioned before, health and boost are now their own meters, and there are a lot more places where it will shoot you up into the air and expect you to fly your racing machine around for a few seconds before landing. They do have a fun little maneuver you can do in mid-air where you can hold a shoulder button to spin and gather up power. And if you time the release properly just as you land, your ship will quickly boost ahead of the competition. The differences here are minor, and the track design is spot on, which makes this a joy to play overall.
Visually, Aero GPX looks like a prototype build for an F-Zero game for the Nintendo Switch. The visuals are simplistic, typically represented as bright colors and simple shapes, but everything works cohesively when you’re going breakneck paces down a track, trying to blow up your opponents’ ships. The character designs all have a delightful early 2000s comic book style to them that makes them instantly endearing. The music wouldn’t be amiss out of F-Zero X, either, which is probably the highest praise I can give any of these titles.
That being said, Aero GPX is not yet finished as it is in Early Access on Steam. Both the main menu, career mode screen, and single player menus have very obvious “Coming soon!” banners on them, with two more cups coming, forming a likely total of 25 tracks since each already present division has five tracks each. The tracks are enjoyable, and while they may be more simplistic in presentation than something from F-Zero GX, the actual technical skill demanded by the player is just as high and just as entertaining.
It’s been many years since I found an arcade racer I’ve enjoyed this much- the last one was probably either Fast RMX on the Switch or BallisticNG, though the latter of which is closer to Wipeout and is a lot more floaty and momentum-based compared to the snappy movement in F-Zero, in my opinion. Hopefully, the remaining 10 tracks and game modes are up to snuff with what’s currently included in Aero GPX because that would mean my $17 was well spent.
That being said, I think it’s likely time to bring this entry of Save State to a close. It’s a short column this week, but I really just wanted to share the fun new title I discovered after spending a great deal of time last time gushing over my favorite anti-gravity racing game from childhood.