Some great weapons
Littered around each track are weapon pads, allowing you to pick up a variety of weapons which can be used to slow down or take out your opponents. This is by far the strongest part of the gameplay thanks to the range of decent weapons on offer, such as magnets that you can launch at other craft, sticking to them and knocking them off balance, or the time dilator, which slows down all other craft on the field allowing you to shoot-off in front. You can use each weapon you pick up in two ways. By pressing either the LB or RB button you can either send them forwards or backwards into the chasing pack and some weapons also have more than one use, such as rockets which you can fire at an opponent or if you choose you can attach to your own ship in order to achieve a boost of speed. Of course, you also have to bear in mind that your opponents will also be firing a variety of weapons at you, so you need to keep an eye on what’s going on and use the strafe triggers to avoid any projectiles and use your own weapons only when you really need them.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageOne of my favourite weapons involves snagging your opponent, which is triggered by using both the primary and secondary weapon at the same time. The animation shows a piece of elastic shooting out from your craft and attaching to your opponent. You're then able to attach your opponent to the ground with a cable causing him to crash and be eliminated from the race.
The mechanics of controlling the craft in Fatal Inertia are good enough and it's extremely easy to pick up and master the actual racing aspect extremely quickly, but unless you're lucky enough to pick up a rocket along the route, allowing you to use your boost function, there's never really any true feeling of speed; it just feels as though you're trundling along. This means that the single player campaign isn't really a race at all, but it's more about picking up the best weapons and making sure you knock your opponents out the way; the racing aspect is, dare I say, far too easy.