Ground Effect, an impressive new arcade racer from Glenn Corpes, has finally hit the app store. Beautiful 3D environments, super smooth framerates, and exciting action converge to take you on one wild ride.
Ground Effect features 14 gorgeous island tracks of increasing difficulty upon which you can race any of the 10 available Ekranoplan ships. All ships are available without the need to be unlocked, though all boast the exact same stats and abilities. The difference in ships is purely skin deep, which is a bit of a disappointment. It would have been cool to unlock more powerful ships as you progressed in the game, but given that you are simply racing around the course without the need to directly compete with other ships or utilize any sort of weapons, this is not a huge deal. Your ship moves by skimming on a cushion of air over the water and island landscapes, creating a frictionless ride that gives a good sense of speed. Effective racing involves moving swiftly through the checkpoints, indicated by two vertical beams of red light. These serve to denote the course path, which can be difficult to discern in certain levels due to the relative openness of the boards and the sometimes confusing island chain terrain. In order to complete each course and unlock the next, you must finish in 3rd place or better.
As mentioned previously, there is no direct interaction with the other ships that you see skimming upon the water. These simply serve to give you visual cues as to when you improve your positioning in the game. You cannot crash into them and they cannot affect your game in any way. What can affect your game in a big way is not paying attention. Many small bumps on the map can simply be skimmed over, but there are some larger formations that require avoidance altogether. Failure to do so will result in a fiery crash and loss of the time that it takes to reset your ship at the last checkpoint. Ground Effect is pretty open and does allow you to discover shortcuts to slice seconds off of your time, though these tend to require more precision and finesse.
There are a few options as far as game modes. The standard mode is Race, where you race the course against the other Ekranoplans for best positioning. There is a Ghost Race mode where you race against a ghost of your best course time. One of my favorite features allows you to view a replay of your previous race. At any point during the replay, you can choose to take over control of the Ekranoplan in an attempt to “fix” the mistakes you may have made in that previous run, slowly but surely perfecting your overall performance. You may also free roam, enjoying the gorgeous scenery and the enjoyable physics of your craft.
The 3D graphics employ some terrific draw distances, allowing you ample time to plan your upcoming moves. The environments are quite enjoyable to experience, and the higher levels really ramp up the difficulty and vastness of the terrain. The in-game sounds are very cool and enhance the overall experience. Ground Effect does support playing music from your own library, too. Controls are fairly intuitive and work well. You can steer the craft using either the accelerometer or touch controls. We preferred the tilt steering, but the touch, utilizing a small joypad, was pretty effective, too. There are buttons in the lower right corner for braking and boosting. Boosting requires a very minimal recovery period, with remaining boost indicated by a yellow bar. Effective racing is often a careful dance between boosting and braking at the right times.
Replay value is generally high, with great graphics, terrific racing, free roaming, and high score tables, though these are currently only local. We have seen similar games where you race craft on a cushion of air, but this one is very well done and has a great overall aesthetic that makes it stand out a bit from the crowd. Ground Effect is currently on sale for $2.99, which seems very fair given its content. This is a solid 4-Dimple game with plenty of potential to hit 5-Dimple status with some future tweaking.
Ground Effect gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
