Fatal Inertia

Format PlayStation 3

Developer Koei

Publisher Unknown

Genre Racing / Driving

20 Comments

Let's not bullshit: this one isn't winning any awards for originality. A futuristic racer in which you pilot a series of weapon-heavy, wheelfree hover-things, Fatal Inertia comes across like a mongrelised hybrid of F-Zero, Mario Kart and WipEout.

It might, however, win awards for other things. Like its graphics, pleasingly solid with cleaver-sharp detail. Or its tracks, a collection of death-smelling danger pits, littered with obstacles and neatly concealed traps. Or its physics engine, which, despite sounding roughly as interesting as Michael Owen reciting a knitting pattern, actually allows for chaos, destruction and devastation on an unprecedented scale. Smart.

The back story to all this is violently simple: it's 'The Future', and the three motorsport disciplines of rally driving, street racing and demolition derby have interbred, resulting in Fatal Inertia, an ultra-aggressive, wonderfully messy racing sport. There's no pissing about with storylines or character arcs. Just you, a really pretty track and your vehicle. Oh, and some weapons.

FANNY MAGNET
And here's where Fatal Inertia really takes off. Because the game's surprisingly broad array of weapons has been carefully engineered to take full advantage of that stunning (yawn) physics engine. See, we're not just talking dull-as-lard front-mounted cannons and standard-issue rockets here. We're talking weaponry far more abstract: grappling irons, magnets, smoke bombs, force fields and cluster bombs packed with dozens of, er, magnets.

OK, it sounds a bit weird. Weird and a little bit (whisper it) gay. But it isn't. Because these aren't any ordinary magnets. They're hyper-magnets, capable of clamping onto an opposing racer's craft and severely affecting its manoeuvrability. The key is in how you use them: stick a magnet on the back of a rival racer and it merely slows him down; stick it on the left wing however, and it weights him heavily on one side, dragging him off his preferred racing line. There's more: stick a couple of magnets onto duelling rivals when they're racing parallel and the force of the metal suckers brings them clashing together like jogger's bollocks. Lovely.

Magnets also come rocketpowered. These can be fired onto the back of an opposing racer, causing him to suddenly accelerate off at an insane speed. We know what you're thinking: 'Why in the name of Melton Mowbray would I want to give my opponent a speed boost?' Fair point. But bear in mind we're not talking about a gentle push here, we're talking about a full-on, twohanded shove, usually in the direction of the nearest cliff face. Uniquely in the realm of racing game weaponry, these rocketpowered magnets are a joy to both give and receive. OK, so it's a slight pain in the arse when you're happily driving along in first place, only to be fired into a tree at 300mph, but it's one hell of a way to go.

PLAYING HOOKY
The grappling hook is also worth a mention, largely because it can be used both as a weapon and a racing tool. As with all the weapons in Fatal Inertia, how you employ it is entirely at your discretion. You can either fire one end onto your opponent's bumper and the other into a rock face, thus tethering your rival to the wall, or you can use it to slingshot yourself around a tight bend, Batmobile-style.

Interestingly, you'll be able to combine certain weapons to create newer and ever more devastating attacks. It's all about having the balls to experiment

A key element in that experimentation is your environment. The destructible nature of the courses means you can mould and shape the tracks to your own ends. Stuck in last place with nothing stronger in your arsenal than your boring old cannon? No worries. Simply aim your targeting wotsit at the nearest rock face and fire away, causing an avalanche of rocks to cascade down onto the track. Even if you don't hit your rivals with the tumbling debris, you'll create a sizeable obstacle that'll slow them down next time around.

The potential here is massive, from shortcuts that must first be blasted out before you can access them, to bridges that can be blown up while rivalracers are midway across. Thankfully, the tracks we've seen thus far are staggeringly pretty, from the canyon to the forest and the glacial plains.

FIDDLING WITH YOUR BITS
It's not just the tracks you can twat about with; the vehicles are fully twat-enabled too. Brilliantly, you can mess with both the
appearance of your chosen craft (adding decals and new paintjobs as you see fit) and its trackrelated performance. Customising your ship is a matter of swapping parts around in a bid to find your perfect speed/handling/ acceleration balance, then putting it through its paces with a test run.

Once you're happy with your set-up, take it online to race with an as-yet-unspecified number of PS3 players over an as-yetunspecified number of multiplayer modes. The one online mode we can confirm is Pass the Bomb, a standard 'tag' affair in which players battle to hand off the aforementioned explosive beforeit detonates and eliminates them from the race. We've also been promised the ability to trade car parts with other players, and the option to swap tuning tips. A virtual Fatal Inertia owner's club, as it were.

If we do have a concern, it's the relative lack of speed. In the realm of the futuristic racer, speed is everything. From the eyecrossing 500mph gush of WipEout to the dizzying, brain-shafting dash of F-Zero, this is a genre that lives or dies on its ability to make your everyday, non-future race title look utterly pedestrian. So it's a slight worry that Fatal Inertia, in its current form, lacks that "Ohh!"- making turn of pace. Don't get us wrong, it still clops along at a fair old whack, easily outdoing its launch-day rival MotorStorm. It's just that the expectation for thrills and spills is so much higher with this particular brand of racing.

None of which should dampen your enthusiasm for a title that looks destined to become one of the key weapons in PS3's opening salvo on the UK market come March. Those who assumed MotorStorm was a shoo-in for the chequered flag come launch day might want to think again.

PSW Staff