Gears of Glory: Apex Ace Windows game

The pick-up-and-play competitive racer - GEARSOFGLORY.COM

Description

Gears of Glory: Apex Ace is a challenging top-down technical racer on PC aimed at racing fans who want a no-nonsense pick-up-and-play experience for when they have a few minutes of spare time available.

If you are the type that enjoys racing games such as Forza, Gran Turismo, and F1, but want something small for when you are limited on free time, and that doesn't require hour-long blocks to get something out of the gameplay, you will probably enjoy this.

Whilst the gameplay is currently stripped right down to time-trial modes, the game has much more technical racecar handling than the usual arcade, drifting, casual racer. It's a completely level playing field and skill is required to master. The car squirrels under braking, the brakes will lock up, understeer/oversteer etc.

Whilst in a singleplayer mode, it feels like multiplayer as the Dynamic Opponents system picks other players in the standings above your own position in leaderboards to race against you. All player laps are kept in cloud storage and are downloaded automatically. Beat those players and rise in the standings. It's always in an asynchronous multiplayer state.

Features

• 24 Challenging circuits which increase in difficulty over four tiers.
• Time-trial gameplay with car handling more technical than your typical top-down racer.
• Earn trophies by achieving fast laps and completing dynamic challenges, rising in overall standings.
• Get the multiplayer kick in singleplayer - race anyone on the leaderboard, any time.
• Dynamic Opponents system deploys other players on the racetrack to race as players improve, outrace them to rise in the standings.
• Player Challenge: Pick an opponent, and race against their physical car. Find and maintain space to overtake, or spin out in a collision.
• No upgrade trees or paid-for performance perks - everyone using the same racecar - a truly level playing field.
• No AI whatsoever. All opponents on track are other players in the racing community. Opponents don't need to be online for players to race them.
• FREE 24 hour demo with access to 12 circuits when registering for Domipheus Labs OnlineServices at Services.domipheus.com
• COMING SOON: In-game circuit editor.
• COMING SOON: Multiplayer with traditional lap-count races and lobbies.

Game Modes in the beta

Season Time-Trial
In this mode, players race all of the season circuits which currently stands at 24. As they race, setting best laps and finding better lines to rise in the leaderboards, opponents appear alongside the players own best lap replay.

This is the first part of the Dynamic Opponent system at work - the opponent you face is usually the person directly above you in the leaderboards. As you progress, new opponents appear - and this happens on the fly.

So regardless of where you are, the singleplayer element revolves around racing other player laps, which have been raced at any time.

Player Race
This mode is very simple - when you view the season tier leaderboards, you can browse the ranking, and race any lap on the boards. Any. If your friend is above you in the leaderboard and you just cant find the time to beat them via the season time-trial, race directly against them and check out where they find time on the lap.

Player Challenge
This mode is very difficult, and if successful players receive many trophies( the XP/Score unit in the game) for the accomplishment. It is exactly as the Player race, apart from the fact the replay you are racing against is not a ghost but an interactive, collidable, car. So to beat their lap, you need to find and maintain space to overtake. You can jostle, however, the game does not let you influence the lap time of the other player. If you try to ram, or jostle to an unacceptable level, you will crash and be left with a bad lap. Because of the trophy reward associated with this, only players around or above your current ranking can be raced.

Replayability

Unlike most racers, the leaderboards are based on who got that lap time last, rather than first. So as the top end of leaderboards begin to normalize as the perfect racing line is discovered, it becomes much more a test of consistency as well as speed.

Coming in an update is an in-game circuit editor, with options to publish to the game community. Every published custom circuit will come with a global leaderboard.

If you are knocked down the standings by others, challenges are generated which offer trophy rewards if you regain your original position in the leaderboards. You are also notified immediately when you go up or down in the standings.

Where to get it

Most up to date information will be at Buy.gearsofglory.co.uk .

It is currently going through Desura publishing operations.

You need to register for an account on Services.domipheus.com to play, as that is your login for all the cloud storage, leaderboards and achievements.

Social
Twitter: @GearsOfGlory
Facebook: Fb.com
YouTube: youtube.com/GearsOfGlory
The developer(me!) twitter: @domipheus

Trailer