Originally Posted June 12th, 2014 on the Seafoam Gaming Forums

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After making the game known as AiRace SPEED, Qubicgames decided to make more levels for that game for an upcoming iOS version. Of course they wouldn’t leave out their 3DS fans. So releasing the new levels as an separate game, Qubicgames offers a great entry point to the series!

Title: AiRace XENO

System: Nintendo 3DS (Eshop)

Price: 2.49

Release date: 6/12/2014

The main game/story

To my knowledge… There’s not much of a story at all. None in game at least from what I could see. Still, the main game consists of you flying around, avoiding obstacles and making your way past gates and walls to the goal! Simple yet fun.

Graphics

Right off the bat I noticed this game looks AMAZING on the 3DS. All nice and detailed, with lots of neat touches. The 3D looks VERY nice as well, though unfortunately the game randomly drops framerate in areas with a lot of obstacles, even with it off. Though it doesn’t really hurt the gameplay too much, as it’s still mostly smooth.

Music and sound effects:

Sadly, the music isn’t really that great. Most of the time it’s just loud and noisy to the point it covers up the cool sound effects in the game. With the exception of the menu theme I didn’t really like much of the tracks in the game. I kinda wish the developer included an option to turn off music and leave sound on, since the sound effects sound very neat!

Gameplay

There are 9 stages in this game to unlock. (To my knowledge unless there is a super secret stage I don’t know of) That may not sound like much, but this game certainly makes the 2.49 worth spending. When you start, you can choose to use the stylus mode to control your ship, or the button mode. Having tried both of them I prefer the button mode MUCH more, especially with a D-Pad. It’s nice and precise and works very well.

You move at a decent speed by default, but holding down the A button launches you forward and makes you go SUPER fast! The Nitro boost is the key to getting the gold stars in this game, as you must use it and avoid every obstacle in your way. You can also brake to slow down and be precise, however this will obviously hurt your score, a lot.

Speaking of score, how the gold stars are awarded depends on your time. If you do OK, you get a Silver star. If you do kinda bad, you’ll get a bronze star, If you do excellent, you’ll get a Gold Star. Of course you can’t go in and crash endlessly trying to make it to the end, as the game punishes you for every crash you make by adding 3 seconds to your time. Therefore, you must learn to go fast AND to also avoid obstacles along the way. This leads to a challenging yet fun experience, and with online leaderboards that let you compete with friends and other people who play this game, it creates a lot of replayability, especially with the levels offering multiple paths.

And now, we come to endless mode. Level 6 is the endless level where you just fly as far as you can with a limited amount of lives. Keep flying as many laps as possible, as the obstacles increase in intensity. This is the best part of the entire game, as you can use this to practice avoiding obstacles in general, as well as to play on the leaderboards. With about 20 or so achievements to unlock, you will get a lot of play time from this game, even if some of the achievements are silly (Like crash 500 times total). So in terms of gameplay, this game NAILS it.

Conclusion

AiRace Xeno is a worthy budget title on the 3DS Eshop. With good graphics, fun gameplay, and lots of replay value, you should certainly pick it up, especially with Online leaderboards and achievements included! It’s cheaper than the cheapest Game Boy Virtual Console games, and it has a lot more replay value than most of them. The only major thing I didn’t like that much was the music, but besides that, it’s a fun game. I give AiRace XENO an 8 out of 10.

Thanks to QubicGames for giving me a review code.

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