Let's get one thing out of the way first: Are you a Rollcage fan? Are you a fan of any kind of futuristic racer, or even just the idea of super fast wheeled tanks flinging explosives at each other like some kind of Mad Max Kart? I am. After dumping entirely too many hours into playing this (mostly in multiplayer), I feel qualified to tell you if this game's worth your time, and what other reviewers are saying. Let's break it down, with how well this handles each aspect of what makes a classic in the genre.

1. CONTROLS AND HANDLING.
Earlier reviews can be disregarded as the physics have been revamped and cars are very stable on the road. The tracks have gotten similar polish to address visibility and problem terrain. Your vehicle is responsive to your input, whether keyboard of gamepad. However, it is not a clone of Rollcage, it's its own thing; cars have a tremendous amount of downforce grip and weight, so you will not grapple with cars oversteering and spinning out with excess throttle power like that game. Instead, cars primarily understeer, meaning they don't turn as hard as you want to unless you slow down appropriately for a corner. You can induce a turn-sharpening powerslide with a bit of tapping (don't hold) of the handbrake, this lets you carry more speed through a corner.

This is important: you are not expected to take every corner at maximum speed. If you're going too fast for a corner, the car will just simply not turn sharp enough and overshoot the corner, powerslide or not. When approaching and during a corner, use your brakes and handbrake to adjust your speed and angle. Lighter, grippier cars can hang on through corners at higher speeds, while heavier/less grippy cars must slow down more to take the same turn.

Drive fast and drive hard, but you can't go flat out into every corner. Still, accidents do happen, and the game has many ways to deal with it as explained later. Most directly is the track reset button and Boost mechanic.

As far as "hitting rocks that send your car flying"... well, if you are on a rocky track, and going very close to the edge of the driveable road, it gets bumper and yes, can unsettle your car. This just means you're driving too far offroad, or cutting that corner too closely.

The game has since added "Airblades", which are anti-gravity versions of the cars that can glide over bumps and rough terrain much easier. They're more vulnerable than "Rollers" in combat, though, hits from explosive weapons knock out the antigravity engines temporarily. This leaves the car temporarily helpless for a second or two.

2. COMBAT.
Item pickups are optional. A main focus regardless, it's fun to blow stuff up and Grip tunes the experience to give you as much of that as possible. Each weapon serves a purpose, has a right time and a wrong time to use it, and there's strategy in "charging" your pickups. To do this, grab two items, then hold the trigger of one of them until the charging process begins. It'll consume the other powerup to make it stronger and sometimes do different things.

There's even mechanics to reasonably ensure that the pack remains within fighting distance, being the Boost mechanic charging faster the further behind you are, the (optional) Catch-Up assistance option, and the Time Disruptor powerup.

Weapons in Grip, on top of dealing damage, aim to disrupt your car in various ways, like flipping your car over or making it hard to drive straight. Uniquely to GRIP, though, almost every weapon has counterplay you can do to either mitigate the loss of control, or dodge it completely. Steam Guides are very helpful further reading on this.

3. OPTIONS AND CONTENT.
There are plenty of gameplay options and settings here for all types of racing game player. Between all of the gamemodes, cars, and gameplay toggles, early every part of the game can be tweaked to your taste and mood. Between settings like engine power, game objectives, and being able to toggle on and off most of the race mechanics, and even novelty "cheat" modes that do things like multiply engine power several times over or turn the game into Quake 3 instagib. There's even modes like Speed Demon which replaces all powerups with turbos.

There's many tracks of differing styles, with all feeling unique: some freeform with many routes, some circuit-like, rollercoaster-like, on and off-road, and creative driving in all directions. You get the idea. They have Wipeout-style normal and reverse versions of each track with different routes and sections available in each.

The campaign serves as a decent tutorial to gradually introduce you to each weapon, track, and game mechanic while pushing you to master gradually increasing speeds and difficulty. Because of the random weapons and powerups, it still does suffer some Mario-Kart-like frustration in a single-player environment. Which is why...

4. BALANCE AND MULTIPLAYER.
The game's lasting appeal is its multiplayer, often found organized in the Discord server.

With only three minor exceptions (Rogue, Warlander and Jackal are simply less performant than the rest), all cars are viable, excelling in different ways and tracks that can be applied to any mode of racing. The cars are many, and fill the spectrum of archetypes. The starting cars are some of the best all-rounders in the game.

People may see the Tempest having the fastest maximum speed in the game and jump straight to it with the engine setting cranked to max. They then try to learn the game with a car that is fast in a straight line but also:
1. huge and unwieldly
2. heavy
3. slow to start, exit corners, and recover when something goes wrong, and
4. has the worst grip and brakes in the game
That means unless you slow way down for corners, master the handbrake, can counterplay every weapon, and know the ideal racing lines for the track, it will hate you. If this is the first thing you try, don't get discouraged too much. The heaviest cars are the most punishing yet rewarding.

In fact, don't get too discouraged in general if your skills from Rollcage, Redout, F-Zero, FAST RMX, or what-have-you don't transfer over immediately! The game can be accommodating to scale up the challenge as you and your friends learn, fun just to drive, and (with weapons enabled) always unpredictable enough to have something to laugh at now and then. Try different cars, get the hang of driving on a reasonable engine power, then turn up the heat as you improve. You'll be having a blast before you know it.

To join the multiplayer community, join the Discord! It's available in the ingame Multiplayer menu.

Good luck!

Let's get one thing out of the way first: Are you a Rollcage fan? Are you a fan of any kind of futuristic racer, or even just the idea of super fast wheeled tanks flinging explosives at each other like some kind of Mad Max Kart? I am. After dumping entirely too many hours into playing this (mostly in multiplayer), I feel qualified to tell you if this game's worth your time, and what other reviewers are saying. Let's break it down, with how well this handles each aspect of what makes a classic in the genre. [b][u]1. CONTROLS AND HANDLING.[/u][/b] Earlier reviews can be disregarded as the physics have been revamped and cars are very stable on the road. The tracks have gotten similar polish to address visibility and problem terrain. Your vehicle is responsive to your input, whether keyboard of gamepad. However, it is not a clone of Rollcage, it's its own thing; cars have a tremendous amount of downforce grip and weight, so you will not grapple with cars oversteering and spinning out with excess throttle power like that game. Instead, cars primarily understeer, meaning they don't turn as hard as you want to unless you slow down appropriately for a corner. You can induce a turn-sharpening powerslide with a [i]bit of tapping (don't hold)[/i] of the handbrake, this lets you carry more speed through a corner. This is important: you are [i]not[/i] expected to take every corner at maximum speed. If you're going too fast for a corner, the car will just simply not turn sharp enough and overshoot the corner, powerslide or not. When approaching and during a corner, use your brakes and handbrake to adjust your speed and angle. Lighter, grippier cars can hang on through corners at higher speeds, while heavier/less grippy cars must slow down more to take the same turn. Drive fast and drive hard, but you can't go flat out into every corner. Still, accidents do happen, and the game has many ways to deal with it as explained later. Most directly is the track reset button and Boost mechanic. As far as "hitting rocks that send your car flying"... well, if you are on a rocky track, and going very close to the edge of the driveable road, it gets bumper and yes, can unsettle your car. This just means you're driving too far offroad, or cutting that corner too closely. [i]The game has since added "Airblades", which are anti-gravity versions of the cars that can glide over bumps and rough terrain much easier. They're more vulnerable than "Rollers" in combat, though, hits from explosive weapons knock out the antigravity engines temporarily. This leaves the car temporarily helpless for a second or two.[/i] [b][u]2. COMBAT.[/u][/b] Item pickups are optional. A main focus regardless, it's fun to blow stuff up and Grip tunes the experience to give you as much of that as possible. Each weapon serves a purpose, has a right time and a wrong time to use it, and there's strategy in "charging" your pickups. To do this, grab two items, then hold the trigger of one of them until the charging process begins. It'll consume the other powerup to make it stronger and sometimes do different things. There's even mechanics to reasonably ensure that the pack remains within fighting distance, being the Boost mechanic charging faster the further behind you are, the (optional) Catch-Up assistance option, and the Time Disruptor powerup. Weapons in Grip, on top of dealing damage, aim to disrupt your car in various ways, like flipping your car over or making it hard to drive straight. Uniquely to GRIP, though, almost every weapon has counterplay you can do to either mitigate the loss of control, or dodge it completely. Steam Guides are very helpful further reading on this. [b][u]3. OPTIONS AND CONTENT.[/u][/b] There are plenty of gameplay options and settings here for all types of racing game player. Between all of the gamemodes, cars, and gameplay toggles, early every part of the game can be tweaked to your taste and mood. Between settings like engine power, game objectives, and being able to toggle on and off most of the race mechanics, and even novelty "cheat" modes that do things like multiply engine power several times over or turn the game into Quake 3 instagib. There's even modes like Speed Demon which replaces all powerups with turbos. There's many tracks of differing styles, with all feeling unique: some freeform with many routes, some circuit-like, rollercoaster-like, on and off-road, and creative driving in all directions. You get the idea. They have Wipeout-style normal and reverse versions of each track with different routes and sections available in each. The campaign serves as a decent tutorial to gradually introduce you to each weapon, track, and game mechanic while pushing you to master gradually increasing speeds and difficulty. Because of the random weapons and powerups, it still does suffer some Mario-Kart-like frustration in a single-player environment. Which is why... [b][u]4. BALANCE AND MULTIPLAYER.[/u][/b] The game's lasting appeal is its multiplayer, often found organized in the Discord server. With only three minor exceptions (Rogue, Warlander and Jackal are simply less performant than the rest), all cars are viable, excelling in different ways and tracks that can be applied to any mode of racing. The cars are many, and fill the spectrum of archetypes. The starting cars are some of the best all-rounders in the game. People may see the Tempest having the fastest maximum speed in the game and jump straight to it with the engine setting cranked to max. They then try to learn the game with a car that is fast in a straight line but also: 1. huge and unwieldly 2. heavy 3. slow to start, exit corners, and recover when something goes wrong, and 4. has the worst grip and brakes in the game That means unless you slow way down for corners, master the handbrake, can counterplay every weapon, and know the ideal racing lines for the track, [i]it will [b]hate[/b] you[/i]. If this is the first thing you try, don't get discouraged too much. The heaviest cars are the most punishing yet rewarding. In fact, don't get too discouraged in general if your skills from Rollcage, Redout, F-Zero, FAST RMX, or what-have-you don't transfer over immediately! The game can be accommodating to scale up the challenge as you and your friends learn, fun just to drive, and (with weapons enabled) always unpredictable enough to have something to laugh at now and then. Try different cars, get the hang of driving on a reasonable engine power, then turn up the heat as you improve. You'll be having a blast before you know it. To join the multiplayer community, join the Discord! It's available in the ingame Multiplayer menu. Good luck!