Overdrive Circuit

Overdrive Circuit is a 3D arcade combat racer built by QuickGameRoom. The camera sits behind your car, the three circuits run through a downtown at noon, a container harbour at sunset and a sandstone canyon at golden hour, and the job is the same as it has always been in this kind of game: cross the line first, and wreck whoever is in your way while you do it. Six cars, four laps, weapon pads on every straight.

The driving is deliberately simple. The car accelerates on its own; you steer with the arrow keys or the on-screen buttons and brake only when a hairpin asks for it. The road has a verge you can run on and a wall beyond it that scrubs speed and chips your health, so a clean line is faster than a wide one. The chase camera widens its view as you speed up and again when a Turbo fires, which is most of what makes the straights feel fast.

Weapons come from the glowing pads. Dart fires three straight shots. Seeker homes in on the car ahead. Ripple is a shockwave that shoves everyone near you. Turbo gives two seconds of boost, and a turbo ram does the most damage in the game. Mine drops behind you and arms after half a second. Bubble absorbs one hit. Patch repairs you to full. Storm drops three lightning strikes across the road ahead of the race leader, and they stay there for most of a lap. Hold brake while firing to send a Dart or Seeker at the car behind you. Whatever you are carrying is mounted on your roof, so rivals can see it coming. Every pad shows the weapon it holds, so you pick the pad you want; a ? pad gives a random one, and a driver further back is more likely to get a Seeker or a Turbo from it. Storm is for human drivers only: the computer never fires one.

Every car has a health bar. At zero it spins, smokes, and respawns on the racing line two seconds later with a short shield, so nobody is ever out of the race. The results sheet shows the finishing order and the takedowns, and on a close night the driver with three takedowns feels like the real winner.

Three tracks ship with it, each with a jump you fly off and a tunnel that dives under the scenery; in the air you cannot steer, so line up before the lip. Skyline Loop runs through downtown at noon with two long sweeps and the fastest lap. Harbour Run has a hairpin at each end of a long quay straight past the cranes and container stacks, at sunset. Canyon Pass is tight and twisty between sandstone mesas at golden hour, where Seekers and Ripples decide more than top speed.

Play solo against five computer drivers, split screen with a friend on one keyboard, or online with up to four people from different devices while the computer fills the grid. The host's browser runs the race and streams it to the others over a direct peer-to-peer connection: no account, no download, no game server.

Pick a track and press Race now, then steer with the arrow keys or the on-screen buttons. Drive over a glowing pad to collect a weapon, and fire it with Space or the fire button when a rival is ahead of you.

Keep a Turbo for the straight after a hairpin and ram the car in front rather than passing it. Watch the minimap for mines on the racing line, and use the verge on the inside of a sweep if it saves you a brake.

Our take: it looks better than it has any right to for something that loads in a second, and the chase camera makes the Seeker hits land harder than they do in the top-down version. A solo race takes about a minute and a half. It wants a laptop or a desktop; on a phone it runs, but the on-screen buttons and a small viewport make the hairpins hard. Canyon Pass for takedowns, Skyline Loop for pace. If you want the same race from above, Surge Circuit is the same rules in 2D and lighter on a phone.