Fatal Inertia EX Review - PS3

After more than a yearlong delay and a disappointing stopover on the Xbox 360 (where it appeared as the far less EXy Fatal Inertia) KOEI Canada’s Fatal Inertia EX has arrived on the PlayStation 3. This updated, retooled (and downloadable, $30) version of the blazing fast hovercraft battle racer sports eight new tracks, tighter controls, sharper visuals and a new training section where all of you panic-prone Cougars out there can now hone your skills and become the Mavericks of your dreams – minus the killer abs and with a bit more Star Wars than you were probably expecting.  But more on that in a bit.

Fifty-Nine Courses. Six Exotic Locales. One Pony. One Trick.

Aside from vaguely being set in the “mid-22nd century” and the inclusion of a brief opening cinematic of a woman in a skin-tight leather racing suit gently caressing the hull of a ship, there is very little story in Fatal Inertia EX. You are told, via thoroughly engrossing title cards, that you have been chosen to participate in a series of research experiments to test out a new series of hovercraft racers and that you must compete in a series of qualifying races in order to earn the endorsements of the four main ship manufacturers in the game. Before you can progress to the next class of races, you must win a series of tournaments followed by a one-on-one race against a ridiculously skilled enemy opponent. Once you’ve claimed victory there, you move on to another series of events, rinse and repeat.

Just to be fair, I’m not saying that I expect a game like Fatal Inertia EX to enthrall me with a mind-melting narrative. But is it too much to ask to have a semi-compelling story so that the races have some weight and relevance to them rather than simply being a series of meaningless progress reports?

As for game types, they are your standard fair. On the single player side, you have Quick Race and Career Mode. Quick Race allows you to choose any course in the game and tweak the layout, the weather, time of day and the number of computer opponents. Given the flawless AI that appears towards the end of Career Mode, you will want to spend a fair amount of time running practice races and memorizing the course designs here, since you will often find that the difference between first and last is many times the result of a single last minute hesitation on your part.

On the multiplayer side, you can compete with up to eight players (online or LAN) in any of the race types and courses found in the single-player mode. You can also play the career mode co-op. Online play is smooth and lag-free, and the game actually reaches some surprising levels of enjoyment when you and seven friends are screaming through treacherous terrain, trying to bring down one another with a strategically placed smoke screen or force rocket. Multiplayer also represents the legs of the game, since you will most likely never want to take on the error-free computer again once you realize how much more satisfying and rewarding online play can be.

Are You EXperienced?

Career Mode is clearly where the meat of the game resides, what little of it there actually is. You start with a prototype ship, which you use to prove yourself in a series of beginner tournaments and unlock more vehicles and tournaments with each subsequent victory. Adding some much-needed variety to the gameplay are the four distinct battle types to which each race adheres: Velocity, Magnet Mayhem, Melee and Knockout.

These race types determine what weapons you will have access to during the race, compliments of weapon beacons scattered throughout the tracks. Each of the weapons has a primary and alternative fire, which adds some interesting strategy to the otherwise straightforward racing. Sadly, there are no new weapons included in the PS3 version, but there is a new difficulty level called Master Class, for the truly sadistic among you.

Velocity is a straight speed race with nothing but rockets and speed boosters, and these are the races where FI:EX shines brightest. Sadly, the track designs often punish you for enjoying the speedy visceral thrill the game provides. Too often you will find yourself blazing along at 400 mph, cutting corners at deadly speeds, squeezing between palm trees and kissing the walls of ice caverns, when suddenly a sharp turn will come out of nowhere, you will fly right past a checkpoint and you will have to either double back or hit the re-spawn button, which puts you back on track but starting from a complete stop. These occurrences are not only frequent, but they also seem to contradict the idea behind the game.

The two combat-heavy modes are Melee and Magnet Madness. In Melee, you’ll find elastic-cord projectiles, magnet clusters, smoke screens, EMP bombs as well as a Star Wars-eque force blast, which causes opponents to veer off course or provides a temporary speed boost. Magnet Madness gives you a never-ending supply of, you guessed it, magnets, which can either be fired ahead of you or dropped behind you, depending on your position. The magnets then latch onto nearby opponents, weighing down their ships and eventually exploding. Knockout is simply a last-person-every-lap-gets-eliminated scenario.

While these races have their moments of enjoyment (harpooning two ships together with an elastic cord or setting a smoke screen in front of a group of trees/glacier shards are obvious favorites), they end up being more frustrating than they are worth. Even seasoned gamers will have a tough time trying to maneuver their ships while barrel rolling to remove exploding magnets, firing a rocket, dropping a smoke screen, avoiding falling rocks and strafing around a tight turn in order to hit the next checkpoint. And if that wasn’t enough, the computer AI is flawless at the higher difficulties, which means that very few people will actually complete a full career.

The controls have certainly received some much needed tweaking, but you will still find yourself screaming, “What?!” and “Oh come on!” far more than you will like. There is SIXAXIS support, but it’s really only for people who don’t plan on progressing past the first two or three races. Firing weapons and keeping track of dozens of race elements is hard enough without having to worry about tilting the controller.

The Only Thing Missing are EX-Wings

The ships you will be piloting (and bafflingly crashing into every object on the track) range from small, sporty types to lumbering behemoths, each of which can be modified and customized in an impressive number of ways in the game’s Garage mode. While the majority of modifications are cosmetic (paint color, spoilers, tails, cockpits, etc.); tweaking components such as the engine, the brakes, and the hull can directly influence your ship’s speed, handling, and weight. Similar to the strategy that comes with specific weaponry, your choice of ship can oftentimes be the difference between winning and losing a race. A smaller, lighter craft might be good for outrunning opponents, but it can’t take that much damage. The larger ships can withstand plenty of punishment, but they handle like flying tanks (except when the computer flies them in which case they are the tightest handling ships on the track).

Over the course of the game, you will race through several diverse locations, ranging from tropical islands to arctic coastlines to a series of test tracks (Proving Grounds), which are exclusive to the PS3. The environments are generally convincing and easy on the eyes, and the weather effects serve their purpose well. And yet, as you explore each new location, you can’t help but feel like you’ve been there before…perhaps in a galaxy far, far away.

Aside from the tropical island maps, the rest of the tracks are eerily similar to settings seen in the Star Wars series. Desert canyons = Tatooine. Dense forests = Endor. Arctic tundra = Hoth. Industrial complexes overrun by volcanic eruptions = Mustafar. (Too bad the game didn’t lift some of the narrative threads from the movies as well.) While not exact replicas, these maps could easily be backdrops for a next-gen Pod racing game. Peculiar. Most peculiar.

Putting the “EX” in “Meets All of Your Lowest EXpectations”

If you’ve played the Xbox 360 version, there is very little justification for taking another lap with the PS3 version. Sure the controls are a bit more manageable and the frame-rate is more consistent, but it’s still the same decent looking, Wipeout-meets-Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, one-dimensional experience as before. However, if you absolutely must have a hovercraft racing game to hold you over until Wipeout HD, and you missed it on the 360, then Fatal Inertia EX is definitely worth a look.

Review by: Jake Gaskill