TEAM RACING LEAGUE

Do you have regular races? Would you like something better, brighter, more imaginative? Perhaps such questions were asked by developers from the Dutch studio Gamious when they were looking for an idea for their new game. The smaller gaming studio celebrates its eighth birthday, creating a trio of games from different genres for its existence. All their games so far released were something else, not ordinary. Their idea was to bring something new. We even reviewed one of these games in our country - specifically Turmoil, where it is your job to become a oil tycoon. In the meantime, however, they still managed to bring a relatively abstract issue in July 2017, which is about colors, patterns and racing - Lines. Just a month later, they pulled another title from the sleeve, which is already taking the race more seriously.

The game is called Team Racing League and it was already being developed by Lines during the development of Lines, but it was only available in Early Access in August 2017 when it was released. and should be close to release. Unfortunately, this is far from being the case here, and the release date is unknown. So after the fast counts you were able to calculate for yourself that the game is in the preliminary approach for about a year and a half, which is really quite a long time. I admit that I did not notice this date before playing the game and I only come into contact with it today. I write this mainly because I felt like I was playing something that has a long way to go.

The uniqueness that comes from previous games of the studio wants to have its place in the Team Racing League. I had no idea where the original races could be hidden in ordinary races, but the game quickly acquainted me with the context. A simple intro is waiting for you right at the start, giving you the opportunity to make friends with your driving model. You then get a free hand and you can go to any mode. There are not many here, or you can find here only the absolute basis in the form of team games, time trial and networking. As the name of the first game mode and basically the name of the game suggest, you never play for yourself, but for the whole team. You can play with both artificial intelligence and real players. Basically, it never depends on the number of real players, as you can add missing intelligence. The race then runs in 3-on-3 style.

But to get to the bottom, the race is never about all six players, but only two - one for each team. But what does that mean? Whether by chance or mutual agreement, the selected player from each team is the one trying to go with the wind, while the other two try to make the opponent's life unpleasant. Players now have several options to jointly defeat a clean rival's ride and get, or keep their rider in the lead position. You can join, transfer to fixed locations a solid barrier, or pull virtual strips together to get the opponent into the skid. Likewise, you can avoid rivalry, or by connecting two ships you can gain more acceleration. The game is so dynamic and brisk. An unexpected situation can happen on the track at any time and the race turns 180 degrees a few seconds later.

Moreover, the team competition does not last long and plays on two winning races. If you want to go to extremes in the battle for victory, you can burn your opponent with your own engines. You can also use the same hint to melt the above mentioned solid barriers on the track. There are really a few tricks ready to influence the course of the game. The track is a total of 12, but the design almost reminiscent of classic car tracks, where you drive on a small space around the clock. Although the tracks are small, they contain a lot of treacherous places, which you have to be careful with every ride. Whether it's makeshift barriers around the track, which you can easily break through and out of the track, or even different hills, whose height is not always good to estimate and you can miss or hit them. But what has already hindered me was the low variety of routes. Although they are already 12 here, some of them are very similar. As it is really small circuits, the creators may add a number of others that will make the selection nicely.

Not only the lack of other modes or monotonous tracks are the current problem of the game. Of course, there are also errors that the creators will have to solve. Specifically, I would suggest an artificial intelligence that can have very good but also very bad moments. Especially when attempting a direct clash, artificial intelligence is quite unpredictable. You can very well avoid what it is very difficult to react at high speed. But at some moments he can be incredibly stupid. If you can throw it out of a running cycle, it's usually very difficult to get back to its original pace. It has happened to me that the leader of our team simply stood still in the crash. It's quite annoying, since if you didn't play in full with real players, it can make it uncomfortable to spoil your driving experience. So I believe that the creators will also work on this release.

What I must pick up is a very solid driving model. Because the Team Racing League rides on hovercraft, you have to know when to turn, when to add, when to lose, or how to come and get out of the bend. Of course, all of these are the basic elements of any racing game, alpha and omega, but it's positive that you have very good control over all aspects of your ride. You can really feel the car's behavior even when using the keyboard. At this point, even ordinary time trials are becoming extremely fun, as you are constantly trying to beat time in the world charts. You see, there is room for improvement here or there, and you are trying again and again for even better time. Exactly this was my case. The game also supports the Xbox gamepad, but only partially - that is, especially when it comes to the races themselves. Unfortunately, the DualShock 4 driver didn't understand.

Even smaller games have their own space in the current wildlife of the gaming industry. Team Racing League is trying to conquer him with a good idea that turns ordinary races into completely legal derbys, where individual team members have to work with each other to win. Fun elements coupled with a good driving model pave the way to a group of players who would appreciate such a game style. However, in Early Access, he will have to spend some time to make the bugs tweak and expand the content to make it more interesting.