Super Night Rider is an Arcade style racing game in where you don’t race against other drivers, but against the ever-ticking timer that will keep your hand glued to the accelerate button. We play as a blonde biker named Alice, and with that important bit of info, we are immediately sent off to the race tracks without any more setup needed. The player model on the bike is always wearing her helmet in any case, so for all we know it could be Betty White in there. Our options are to either race through a single six lapped stage or to go through all of the six environments this game has to offer in the Course mode.
Either way you choose, it contains six laps and after each one, the environments transform into either a different time of day or a new theme if you picked Course. It is quite stunning to see how much it changes just from being perfectly sunny and going to dusk. Each theme has six times of days so even if you will be seeing the same assets, they feel pretty fresh every time. Zooming and swerving your way through a highway with a bright city in the background then transitioning to a bright, pedal filled Japanese vista lends it a cool dreamlike feel. It may be a tad distracting at the sudden shift of tone, though the bike is pretty heavily magnetized to the road and you would have to go out of your way to actually drive off the track.
Your main worry is the other drivers. You may not be racing against them, yet there they are still taking up room on the road, and crashing into them will stop you dead in your tracks. Having to regain all of your lost speed from that is something that will cost you dearly, especially in later courses where time is very constrained. It is important to learn when to briefly stop accelerating so you gain more control over your bike and avoid a potential hazard. Slowing down slightly and immediately putting your foot on the pedal is a much better alternative than finding yourself stopped having to start from zero miles per hour again. Due to the vehicles being bikes, you need to take into account the driver needs to lean in order to turn, and not realizing this may have you accidentally headbutting something you were trying to avoid.
Once you get the feel for the game, even slowing down will be taken as a joke as you easily avoid racers and tear past tricky corners. This title isn’t particularly challenging until the last two courses of the six available. Even then, as long as you don’t crash it is still a rather chill experience in comparison to other similar games. Since there are six laps whether you pick Courses or Stages, it takes the same amount of time to complete them. They only take a few minutes so jumping right back in after failing is a near irresistible prospect, that you will likely take them up on until you ace it. Well, that is unless you finished all six courses and you’ve reached the final challenge that has you racing through all of them back to back, in that case, good luck my friends.
The real challenge comes from either raking up points or trying to climb your way up the leaderboards. Points are earned by how fast you zoom past other racers, with you skimming into them earning you a nice bonus. To skim them you need to lean your bike in such a way that your tires scrape against them and is a pretty dangerous thing to do if you are not actively seeking to rake up a ton of points. In the main menus, you can choose either Classic or Super modes which change up the graphics. Classic offers a PS1 era look with sharp polygons, and Super gives you a more modern look. Both are exactly the same in terms of gameplay, and unlocking something in one also unlocks it for the other. There is also an Easy mode that gives you more time, though you will have to start from the first course again.
As soon as you start up a race you are greeted by the awesome soundtrack, featuring six music tracks. Seems like six is a theme with this title, but regardless, the tunes here are great. Better yet is that you have a button to toggle between them while racing, so you can choose your favorite to get you hyped and shoot straight for the finish line. Super Night Riders is a simple game that is a ton of fun to play, but is over very quickly. You can finish the entire thing in about an hour and a half, though it is also a cheap title priced at $7.99. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means, yet it effortlessly captures the spirit and fun of this specific type of driving game. I would easily recommend this to anyone seeking a more laid back, arcade-style racing experience.
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