Lightfield is a futuristic racer but it’s unique in that you can fly anywhere you like in your spaceship.  But you can press a button to hug onto nearby walls, floors, ceilings, and other surfaces, and when you do this, you go much faster.  So you’ll want to do this as much as you can on the crazy tracks where you can go pretty much anywhere.  The game is available to download on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

Play control is decent, but it does have a bit of a learning curve.  To accelerate, hold down the R2 button.  Tilt the analog stick to fly anywhere.  To latch onto a wall like a magnet, hold down the X button.  You can do jumps, tricks, and drifts by releasing the X button and the R2 button at the right times.  By doing tricks, winning races, completing objectives, and even collecting little triangles on the track, you’ll gain experience and when you level up, you can unlock new planets and other goodies.

Because the planets you race on are like open worlds, and you can pretty much go wherever you want, sometimes it can be hard to know where to go on the track if you’re racing.  The game does try its best to keep you informed on where to go with wisps of wind, long light trails from other racers, and even the triangles you collect are arranged in arrows showing you where to go, but it can still be confusing at times.

Adding to the confusion is the menu, which I found rather cumbersome to navigate.  You immediately start the game playing, and then must press start to open a menu.  Here you can choose to compete in a race with four difficulty selections (but even ‘easy’ is very hard).  There’s also time trials and online multiplayer.  You can take photos in Photo Mode as you race, and change the speed of the game from sluggishly slow (but makes it easier to do tricks), to blindingly fast!

There is also a campaign mode where you complete missions.  These are helpful to familiarize yourself with the controls.  You’ll do missions like race, find hidden objects, do tricks, and much more.  Complete enough and you’ll unlock goodies.  Other things you can do in the menu are change planets and the colors of your ship, as well as the music that plays (didn’t really like most of the music, though).  You can also view how many tricks you’ve done, as well as controls, achievements, and other options.

One thing I didn’t find was a local multiplayer mode.  I know this game is blindingly fast, but I’m sure the PS4 could handle at least a split screen.  And if there is a local two player mode, I couldn’t find it on the menu, which is a testament to how confusing it is.  Lightfield isn’t a bad game, but the high learning curve, confusing menus and gameplay, and lack modes kept me from being interested very long.

Kid Factor:

If you drive head on into a wall, your spaceship will explode, but that’s as violent as it gets.  Reading skill is helpful for the text and menus, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may get frustrated at the high challenge and learning curve, though.  Lightfield Hyper Edition is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews