Super Impossible Road

Genre: Racing Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Splitscreen), 2-8 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

(Note: Included in Super Hard Bundle along with Super Glitch Dash, Dust & Neon, and Super Mega Zero.)

Super Impossible Road is a Racing Game released on PC in 2016, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2021, then to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2022. This game has players racing a futuristic-looking ball down a narrow pathway suspended in space, trying to reach the bottom as fast as possible without falling off.

The visuals in this game have to be one of the better examples of how you can make something look excellent by pairing good visual design with solid performance. At their heart, there’s not too much going on here – the balls themselves are fairly simple-looking, the courses are simple and often randomly-generated pathways (and you can even see them popping in if you look far enough in the distance), and the backgrounds are nice but nothing that’s truly pushing the hardware. And yet, the slick framerates and good resolution, both remaining smooth even in 4-player split-screen mode, along with the decent lighting and slick spacey theme that works well with the somewhat abstract nature of the game, combined with the fast-paced synthesized soundtrack that fits this futuristic theme perfectly… all of this combines to make for a visually superb (if a little stylistically-generic) game.

The gameplay works surprisingly well too. The game has exceedingly simple controls – just turn left, turn right, speed boost, and a reset button to get you back to the track if you fall off at an inopportune time. Pretty much anyone can pick this game up and start playing without needing much of a primer.

However, that’s not to say there’s no depth. The twisty-turny path you’re racing on has all kinds of loops, and ambitious players can cut some time off of their run by running themselves off the track at the right time, or boosting into an incline to get a jump. The game will reset you back to where you left the course if you’re off the ground for too long (or boot you completely if you’re in a race with no resets allowed), but if you see a spot beneath you that you think you can make it to in time, you can carve huge swathes off the track. This makes for an excellent risk-reward mechanic, and the game’s solid physics make these attempts at shortcuts really thrilling.

There’s decent variety in race types too, or at least as much as you could expect with this sort of setup. Some courses are a race to beat the clock, some have you racing against other balls, some simply task you with surviving as long as possible without falling, and some challenge you to jump through hoops suspended off of the track. I should note that the game’s online lobbies are sadly empty at this point, but the local multiplayer still works flawlessly, as I noted above.

The one issue I have here is the price – $20 seems a tad on the high side for a game this simple. Thankfully, you can find this game on sale regularly for only $2, which is an absolute bargain. Or you can opt for the Super Hard Bundle, which includes this as one of its four games. Either way, if you’re buying this game, you definitely shouldn’t be buying it at its standard price.

However, I definitely think you should buy it. Super Impossible Road, despite the name, is a highly-accessible game that dares you to jump the track to find shortcuts, at the risk of falling off the track completely. It’s a delight of a game that will have you coming back for just one more run time and again, and the local multiplayer is fantastic too. Just don’t buy it at full price.

tl;dr – Super Impossible Road is a Racing Game that has players racing futuristic-looking balls on narrow pathways suspended in space. This game looks great, plays great, has a fantastic risk/reward element involving jumping off the track as a shortcut, and the multiplayer is excellent too. The standard price seems a tad high for what you’re getting, but this is a must-have when the game goes on sale.

Grade: B

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