PSN Review: Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars

by Andrew Podolsky on October 16, 2008 at 5:29 pm

When we previewed SARB a month ago, it was clear that we had seen something special. At the time I said “it might be one of the best downloadable titles on the PSN,” and having spent the last week playing it continually I can stand by that statement with pride. It’s a thrill to find a game that is so much fun initially, while still leaving plenty of room for sequels and expansion packs.

The story of Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars is one of love, loss, explosions, and nitro boosts. It’s about the love between a car and the indoor soccer arenas it zooms around in, and the agony of losing a match during sudden death overtime. But mainly it’s about the infinite possibilities of a physics engine as capable as Havok, combined with the sharp graphics of Unreal Engine 3, all balled up into a developer’s strange and fantastic concept of turbo-engine soccer.

Despite the simple geometry and highly contained levels, SARB is a gorgeous game with a fast framerate, even in eight-player online matches. Little visual touches, like the flurries of sand or grass that kick up when you roll over the field, suggest an inordinate amount of detail for such a basic game. The soccer ball looks huge and imposing, and it lights up parts of the arena, making it stand out even when eight different cars are zipping around in front of you.

The cars themselves don’t vary much in the way they control, and their main difference is in style. From monster trucks and race cars to Model Ts and scarabs, the cars are light in personality when you select them from the menus, but in the arenas, these cars come to life. This is not a combat game like Twisted Metal, yet the amazing jumps and spins that you can easily perform to knock the ball into the goal give a new definition to “car combat”. Instead of shooting missiles, this is vehicular kung-fu.

The 13 single player tournaments against bots and 20 minigames might have been enough content for the price tag, but the multiplayer bouts are what blast this game off into the winner’s circle of PSN downloadable titles. SARB is a game that rewards skill and practice—precision timing at fast speeds is a difficult challenge, and you can be sure that some online opponents are serious about winning.

SARB is a great concept at its core, and can only be boosted by expanding on that concept. More arenas, vehicles, and multiplayer options are a must for the expansion packs. Gameplay tweaks from the minigames would be a blast to play in multiplayer—in particular the time warping slow-down ball, although it would be a challenge to make that work correctly with multiple players. The goalie minigames would also be a lot of fun to play competitively, if one player could control the cannons that fire the balls towards the goal.

The bonus replay features, while impressive, don’t appeal to me personally. I’d rather play the matches repeatedly instead of spending hours editing together a highlight reel, but the camera options should encourage Youtube machinima for die-hard fanatics. This is a game that you’ll want to see the highlights of—the crazy possibilities of these lively competitions practically demand it.

Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars lives up to its name. It’s highly original and incredibly fun—exactly what the best downloadable games should be. We can’t wait to see what else Psyonix will do with this concept.