Race the Sun is one of those 3-D endless runners/flyers that’s all the rage now on mobile devices and such. You pilot a solar powered flying machine and must glide as far as you can without crashing into anything or staying in the shade too long, causing you to stop completely.  But be careful as the sun is setting, and the shadows get longer and bigger.  How long can you last against the sun?  Race the Sun has been available on PC for a while, but now you can download it  on Wii U as well, which is the console I’m reviewing it on.

Controls are simple. Just move left and right to avoid obstacles.  There are a few power-ups you can gather as you soar.  Blue triangles will increase your score multiplier, but if you graze any obstacle, you’ll lose your count, so watch out!  Yellow pickups give you a speed boost so you can stay in the sun longer.  And if you pick up a green doohickey, you’ll be able to jump one time by pressing the A button, handy for emergencies when you can’t swerve out of the way of an obstacle.  You lose if you run into anything or if you stay in a shadow for too long and stop (remember, your craft is solar powered).

The stages stay the same for a day, but then they change randomly after a 24-hour period and the leaderboards reset, too. Similar to other games of this ilk, there are objectives you can complete, like picking up a certain number of power-ups, jumping a certain number of times, travelling a certain distance, etc.  When you pass one of these objectives, another will fill its place, and you get a little blue circle notch.  Get enough of these and you can level up.  Levelling up lets you equip parts to your plane, like a magnet for attracting power-ups, a score multiplier, the ability to hold more jumps, and more!  You’ll also unlock other goodies like a super-hard Apocalypse mode!  While the game isn’t a whole lot different than other endless flyers of its kind, the simple gameplay and minimalistic visuals give it a certain charm, and it’s worth trying if you enjoy this sort of thing.  I wasn’t very good at this game, myself, but my brother Jeff got way further than I did!

Kid Factor:

Nothing really violent here, except your craft explodes when you hit something. But there is no indication that there is actually someone in the plane, so I guess that’s how they got around that.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play. Race the Sun is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews