In 1996, Sony opened the floodgates to indie console game development on the Playstation 1 through their Net Yaroze platform. Over the next several years, short games and demos of all kinds were created and distributed with game magazines on demo discs, including the focus of today’s episode.
Hover Racing was created by a small team of university students led by designer Tomokazu Sato and primary composer Hiroaki Ohmori between April and November of 1997, a concise but polished clone of futuristic racing games like F-Zero X and Wipeout. The core gameplay consists of 3 Grand Prix with 3 tracks each, as well your usual practice and time attack modes. Like many games of the genre, you race at high speeds through sharp turns, boost pads, jumps and harsh terrain, all at a beautiful 60fps. Overall it’s an impressive package from a team of novice indie game developers.
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