WATCH: My brain can’t take this, GRIP: Combat Racing

Cast your mind back to 1999 and you may remember a PlayStation and PC game called ‘Rollcage’. There was also a sequel a year later too.

This was a golden area for arcade-style racing games. Titles like wipEout were on their third named sequel by this point. Much like the Sony published title, Rollcage also had a Psygnosis connection, was set in the future and players could pick up weapons.

However, you didn’t fly a ship but drove a car – of sorts. The vehicles featured wheels and tyres that were taller than the body and chassis, which meant you could drive upside down. Or rather, the cars didn’t really have an upside or a downside, and you could just continue on when flipped.

The level design capitalised on this, with plenty of crazy tunnels you could drive up the sides off.

But, as the years passed, the wipeEout series continued under the Sony stewardship and even saw the WipE′out Omega Collection release in 2017, which was then updated with VR support and benefits from PS5 compatibility in the years following the initial release. Rival games or even games by original wipEout developers such as Pacer have also flooded the racing game market.

But for many years, Rollcage was simply just a memory. That changed with a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 that promised to bring back the series in a new way. Sadly, that Kickstarter didn’t reach its target, but development continued and it was released in an unfinished form via Early Access on Steam. After a promising early reception, enough funds were pooled to finish the game and it released on PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2018.

Now, I’ve found myself playing the game three years later. Since the initial release, there have been several patches to the game and I wanted to see where it fits within the arcade racing genre. Is this a hidden gem, or something that should have been left as a retro-gaming memory?

Watch this video to find out more and comment on social media if you too have played Grip: Combat Racing.