Hover Ace

Hover Ace is a futuristic racing video game from 2001 developed by the later Stalker creators, GSC Game World. In the game, we control futuristic hovercraft, which we can equip with various types of weapons, armor, engine shields and other devices, such as mortars, turbo or shields that will strengthen, accelerate or arm our vehicle. The main game mode is the championship mode, where we participate in a series of races during which we gain cash with which we strengthen our vehicle. We can choose from several classes of vehicles, such as motorbikes, sports, reconnaissance and military. In addition, the opponents with whom we fight during races often cooperate with each other, shielding each other, which can block us from accessing the vehicle we want to get to or simply make maneuvering and overtaking difficult. For example, in the mode where we have to take over and hold the item, enemy vehicles cover the specific one that contains the item, preventing us from shooting down the enemy and grabbing the item At one time it was one of my own full versions, which I acquired with the cyber mycha magazine while still in elementary school. In real terms, it has never been an outstanding production and today, if anyone remembers it - looks at it through rose-colored glasses of sentiment. If you remember hover ace as well as me, I can assume that you had a really good childhood. Now turn off this video and get back to reality, it's time for a blood test and regular prostate checkup Despite the passage of years, the game continues to play, only in the case of Windows 10 it should be run in the Windows XP compatibility mode and additionally run as an administrator. In my case, not using this solution resulted in the game stuttering

I used to play this game a lot growing up. The main mode is the championship where you progress through races and slowly get more powerful weapons and equipment. The first few races are kind of boring until you actually unlock weapons, but there is a 200% game speed option in the settings to blaze through these first races if you can handle it. Admittedly it is shorter than I remember. I beat the championship mode in less than 2 hours. It only consists of like 18 races. There are other little modes you can play around with too. It's a neat time waster game if you only have a few minutes to play before having to go to work or something like that. Overall it's pretty fun. It was a nice trip down memory lane and makes me wish we got more combat racing games these days.

I picked Hover Ace up on sale, not knowing anything about the game. After completing the two championships, I can say it wasn't a bad experience for what is is, a budget combat racer released in 2001. Hover cars racing around futuristic circuits at breakneck speed littered with various pickups and powerups, such as ammo, health restore, temporary speed boost, invisibility and the like. Sometimes, there's also environmental hazards. Points are awarded for racing performance, fragging the opposition as well as blasting various pieces of scenery. All perfectly serviceable. There's a usual fair of primary and secondary weapons, passive and active accessories and more futuristic additions like shields or afterburner. You can pick from a handful of hover cars sorted into three tiers (light to heavy), through in practice I barely noticed any changes on track except for top speed. That may as well be due to, I think, aggressive rubberbanding: no matter how well I drove, no matter how many people I blew up, the AI was always riding my bumper with little effort on their part. In terms of car-to-car collisions, the slightest bump tended to send me off into the wilderness, while AI racers seemed almost completely unaffected even when I did have the rammer upgrade installed. The game has other modes aside from the championship, but I didn't find anything worth replaying. On a technical level, Hover Ace was fine. It makes every race an audio-visual spectacle with stuff blowing up left and right; almost overwhelming at times! Hardly outstanding graphics even by 2001 standards, but it got the job done at 4K 60FPS on my monitor. In short: if you have about two hours to kill, Hover Ace isn't a bad choice. Just don't expect anything special.