Quantum Redshift is a high speed racing game set one hundred years in the future. Sixteen pilots from around the world suit up and strap into SPARCs, or Single Person Armed Racing Craft, in hopes of winning fame, fortune, and perhaps most important, the respect of millions around the globe. Each pilot has a nemesis, a rival pilot who will stop at nothing to prevent the other from winning the championship.
Story: The story is told through very bland and poorly written taunts before each race. The developers tried to give the game some sort of purpose, which is evident in the time spent making the character animations. With such gems as: "You better keep a stiff upper lip before I blow you away, okay?", I couldn't help but wonder why the developers did not hire a professional writer for a few days. Fortunately, the story (or lack of) does not really subtract anything from the game other than the few seconds it takes to load.
Visual: The graphics in Quantum Redshift are amazing. Each of the tracks and vehicles are bump-mapped and filled with bright, colorful textures. While nothing is breathtaking, mostly due to the fact that you will be racing past at 300+ miles per hour at first, the game is well polished and looks fantastic. Each vehicle retains the standard SPARC setup, yet they all have a very unique and detailed look. Some will have flaps that open and close as your turn, while others retract the twin jets as you hit the turbo. Overall, this is definitely one of the best looking games available for the Xbox.
Gameplay: Gameplay is pretty standard high speed racer stuff. Each race consists of six racers going for the gold, reaching top speeds of one thousand miles per hour at Redshift level. The sense of speed is amazing on the higher difficulty levels. You'll rocket down straight sections, power slide through corners, propel hundreds of feet into the air, and take advantage of the track's shortcuts. While doing this you can pick up one of four powerups that charge homing missiles, regular weapons, over-shields, or all three at once. There is also a point bonus that takes advantage of the game's unique scoring system.
Once you finish a race, you are awarded points based on your performance that you may use to upgrade your vehicle's weapons, over-shields, turbo, or regular shields. You may re-race the track if you wish, but in order to gain more points to upgrade, you must score more points than last time. For example: if your first race nabbed you five hundred points, and your second race scored you eight hundred points, you will get the difference between the two. That's three hundred points added to your total.
The weapons for each vehicle are unique to the driver. Tara, the advanced weapons expert, will fire missiles and grenades as weapons. Kumiko will fire weapons that disrupt the enemy's electronic systems and make them stall on the track for a few seconds. The differences between each character make you want to fully upgrade them to see exactly what they have up their sleeve. In addition, once you power up all weapons and over-shields to level three, you can access the characters mega-weapon. Just like regular weapons, each mega-weapon is unique to the character. Tara, our advanced weapons expert, fires a warhead that results in an impressive looking mushroom cloud. Very nice.
The nemesis element mentioned earlier does not add much to the game and could have been better implemented. It simply provides a bonus in points for killing that particular ship and adds a nemesis challenge, a one-on-one race at the end of every tournament. Although it is worth noting that your particular nemesis will shoot you every chance it gets during a race.
Audio: Sound is decent and nothing too remarkable, but it gets the job done. For some reason the engines are very quiet and I had to turn them up in the sound menu. Music is done by Junkie XL, an electronic band that has recently hit mainstream. I listened to each of the songs a few times before I had to switch to something off my hard drive.
Overall: Quantum Redshift is a futuristic racer that perfects the aspects seen on every other racer before it. The sense of speed combined with the graphics and frantic use of weaponry is beyond comparison. Definitely a rental if you are interested, a must-buy if you've liked this type of game before.
