Battle-racing car puzzler might sound like an overstuffed description of a game, but that is exactly what the overly ambitious Live Arcade title Gripshift sets out to be. Sadly, it does everything just well enough to function, without ever excelling at one area. It is light on battle, light on racing, and extremely light on puzzles, leaving gamers feeling a bit lighter in the MS Points pocketbook without much replayability to show for it.
Gripshift offers two modes for standard offlline play, Challenge and Race. Due to the rather uninspired battle racing, you will spend the majority of your time in Challenge mode. This is where the 'puzzle' elements come in, although they use that word lightly. The game features a robust 125 challenges, split into five difficulties. Each Challenge level gives gamers three specific goals: time, stars, and hidden GS logo. The trick is to complete the track as completely, and quickly, as possible; as the game will award you gold, silver, or bronze for each of the three tasks based on how well you do.
It is impossible to gain 'gold' for each of the three items on a single run through, since your gold time is nearly as fast as you can possibly rush through the track and gathering all the stars in a track typically requires some amount of backtracking. Gamers drive a car on track suspended high in the air, with many pieces purposefully not quite fitting together properly. The gaps in the track are your opportunity to use GripShift's unique take on physics, whereby it is possible to accelerate, turn, or brake while in midair. While a catastrophic glitch for a driving simulator, it works wonders for the arcade-style racer.
As the difficulty of the levels increase, gamers are asked to make mind-boggling jumping turns; hitting the brakes, gas, and wheel at just the right time to land safely. Getting used to the game's tricky physics is perhaps the only 'puzzling' portion of the game, with mastering its tricky driving techniques providing the only challenge. Each track has its own set of dangerous turns, ramps, fans, and other platform jumping obstacles. Determining just how early to hit the brakes, and for how long to lay on them before re-hitting the gas will take quite a few spills down to the distant ground to figure out. Falling off the course, of "Fall Out" as the game calls it, does not end your challenge. Instead, the game places you a few feet from where you fell, for a second (or third) chance at the leap. Sadly, the mid-air controls and some tricky courses are the only things the game has going for it.
At the end of each course, the game awards credits based on how quickly you completed the race and the number of stars and hidden GS icons you found. The credits add up to eventually unlock various in-game items, although it is quite a while until you unlock anything worthwhile; with paint-jobs and skins awarded several times over before getting new cars. The new cars are where your credits come in handiest, as a speedy car in races will help ensure victory.
