Overview – developed by Commodore Industries and published by Over The Game, Millenium Runners is a futuristic anti-gravity racing game where players race at breakneck speeds. Take on the challenge of the high speed races, taking place across varied environments across earth and on planets away from it. This title is available for the steam service, with a link to the game at the bottom of this review.
Disclaimer: before I get into the review, I would like to thank PR Hound for providing the copy of Millennium Runners that was used for this piece. The provision of this software has not influenced the contents of this review, all thoughts and opinions contained within are my own.
Now with the introductions out of the way, let’s get into the review. There doesn’t appear to be any story for this release, so I will be going directly into discussing the gameplay for Millennium Runners. Please note, assets used are from official steam page.
Gameplay – Millennium Runners is a fast paced anti-gravity arcade style racer, where players pilot one of several futuristic vehicles in the Millennium Cup. This is the racing championship where six teams compete for the top spot, with races taking place across futuristic cities and in alien worlds. There are four distinct game modes for this release, with the choice of a Career mode, Arcade free race, Grand Prix and Time Attack.
What should be the main attraction is the Career, where players will select a driver, add their name and then join a team for the Millenium Cup. After going through the set up for a new Career mode, the player can start the races. This is unfortunately where the problems with the game start. The races are similar other anti-gravity racing games, where the challenge is to complete laps of a track, while trying to get to the front of the pack.
While on the track, the player has the usual racing mechanics, with the ability to accelerate, brake and steer, which work moderately well. Then there are the unique mechanics, which consist of a turbo that recharges after being used, as well as a left and right air drift button. The turbo works pretty well in general, offering an increased boost of speed when being used. But the air drifting feels inconsistent when being used at high speed.
Across the tracks, there will be boost pads which will push the player with a big burst of speed, but they can be hard to hit consistently. Then we have the weapon system, which are picked up by grabbing question mark icons. The items consist of traditional attack, defense and boost items, with rockets, shields and turbo boosts. But there are unique items like the Virus, which gives unlimited turbo boosting at the cost of visibility when it expires.
The general racing experience is a real mixed bag, as the systems that handle vehicle speed, as well as the A.I. behaviours appear to be deeply flawed. In all races the opposing racers will blast off from the starting line, leaving the player in the dust. This can be frustrating, as it leads the player to having to fight just to get to the other racers. If the player can reach the pack, the chaos begins, as some racers will be extremely aggressive.
As this is a high speed racer, the items will be important to gaining and maintaining a lead. The boost item can be used to chain between the rechargeable turbo, the boost pads and the turbo pick-ups. This can get the player into a good position, with the weapons and shields helping to keep other riders off the player’s tail. The weapons can be devastating, as they can turn the player around, or slow them to a halt and get them stuck on a wall.
With the way that these mechanics and various hidden details function, every race can be extremely frustrating. Some of the tracks will have the player going ultra-fast, staying ahead of the rest of the racers. Whereas, other races will have the A.I. being way faster than the player, gaining a huge lead and making it a fight to say out of last place. When the A.I. gets significantly ahead, they can be ahead by over a minute in first place.
These speed issues also affect the ability to stay on the track itself, with some courses launching the player off the track. There are several tracks with turns, crests and straights that can cause this, with out of bounds resetting the player back and causing loops to occur. It is also possible for the out of bounds reset to trigger when getting air, especially from tracks with crests in them that cause jumps, further adding to the frustrating experience.
At the end of a race, the times for the racers are shown on the board, which can really show the inconsistent speeds during play. Between races in Career mode, the player will be able to view the pre-race menu. Here the Pilot License appears, showing the stats for races, milestones which are challenges, contract offers for other teams. This is where different vehicles can be used and switched, with six teams in total.
There is a ship customisation option, but it is unknown what goes on in there as is a major flaw with Career mode. At some point during play, the player reaches Shardline Rift, which is fundamentally broken and prevents any progress being made. This is the point where Career mode ends, as the race cannot be completed, there are no opponents, no laps and the player vehicle is incorrect. This is a major oversight on the side of the developer.
Moving onto the other modes, there is the Base Race mode, which offers a single free race with 9 different tracks to select from, split into three groups. Next is Grand Prix, which has player race in four consecutive races for points across four cups. Sadly, the same issue as the Career mode occurs here too, with Shardline Rift breaking two of the Cups, as the final race. Last is Time Attack, which lets players try to set the best time across 9 tracks.
There are multiple vehicles that can be used in the arcade mode, as well as three stages of speed, with speed settings 2 and 3 offering significant boosts. Sadly all of the issues in Career with the inconsistent gameplay is present through all the modes. This is greatly disappointing as the game can become unplayable. There is a dedicated split screen mode for multiplayer races, but this was not possible to be tested.
Now with the gameplay covered, it is time to cover the other aspects of this release, starting with the controls.
Controls – like the gameplay itself, this is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to controls. The game supports keyboard inputs, which are awkward to use and cannot be remapped. There is also controller support with Steam Input, and are better to use but still have some unfortunate flaws to them. There are some minor issues with the inputs, as they can feel both delayed and overly sensitive, adding frustrations at high speeds.
Difficulty – this is wildly unbalanced in terms of challenge, due to the inconsistent speeds, A.I. behaviours, rubber banding and even track design. Some of the races can be a struggle just to stay out of last place, with the A.I. driving perfectly and the player getting stuck on walls. Then there are the races that are the complete opposite, with the player being way ahead of the others. This leaves the game without a feeling of satisfaction, only confusion and disappointment.
Presentation – visually the game looks decent, with the tracks looking pretty good and the vehicles are pleasing to look at. But sadly that is where the positives end, as motion blur is activated by default and looks terrible. The visuals performance also feels inconsistent, with odd stuttering and choppy frame rates at times. There is a decent soundtrack, which fits the tracks and environments, but it isn’t enough to save the experience.
Final Thoughts – I do like anti-gravity racers, like WipeOut having played it on PlayStation and SEGA Saturn as a kid, so I was intrigued by Millennium Runners. However, the experience I had was less than stellar, due to the various flaws that I encountered with the game. There is the potential for a good game under all this mess, but on a fundamental level, it is broken beyond repair. I was excited to play this, but that excitement turned to disappointment quickly.
The game in motion with the blur effect looks like half the screen is smeared in Vaseline, which just makes it headache inducing and I had to stop a few times. Then there is the inconsistent race mechanics, which just made it feel like a coin flip on if it was going to be fun or not. What really soured the experience was the track that was so broken, so incompetently implemented that it just ended the game there with no way to progress.
I won’t be recommending this game, it is poorly balanced, badly optimised and doesn’t function the way it should. It feels like the developers released an unfinished beta, with how inconsistent it is and what feels like a lack of quality assurance. There is so much that they game does right, with the settings for tracks, the designs of vehicles and the amount of content. But the final product is so poor that is negates everything good that it does, and it is being sold as a full game.
In the end, I give Millennium Runners a final score of 1.5/5. This is a disappointing and frankly broken game that is wildly inconsistent in terms of experience, with races that are either a breeze or a struggle to stay out of last place, and one that just breaks progression. If you do want to check this game out for yourself, a link to the game will be below.
Link to Steam version (HERE)
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