MindGames

Back when we were not in the grips of a global pandemic, which honestly feels like a decade ago – I went to EGX in London. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to receive a press pass and I got the chance to talk to some awesome developers about their games. My longest interview with developers were with the crew from Gamechuck, which lasted over an hour! We ended up talking about the various projects they were working on, the origins of those ideas, future plans and what they wanted to get across to their players in the long-term. We have stayed in contact since then and the crew has been great at keeping me aware of their upcoming releases and demos, which we have covered before on the site.

If you cast your mind back to early March of 2020, you will remember that I released an article about Speed Limit – the high-paced arcade inspired game that reminds us what travelling on the Tube could be like if acted upon the internal rage we all feel at people’s behavior on public transport. Well, this week the full game is being released across all platforms and I was lucky enough to receive a review code for this awesome game! Honestly, I was made so happy that I was offered a review code, first time in the history of Mind Games that I have been offered one rather than applying through a system. It is the little things that make us smile.

Of course, a lot has changed since the demo of the game was released last year but feel free to go read my piece on that and come back to this when you are done. Totally not trying to encourage people to read more of my articles. Wink wink, nudge nudge, guilt guilt. Anyways, lets talk about Speed Limit and my time with the game, as well as some interesting things that I highly encourage you to check out for yourself.

The core gameplay of Speed Limit can be summed up with one sentence – keep pushing on, regardless of what is close behind you. Regardless of agents with grenades, bikers with a death wish, aggressive jets or the various railway signs waiting to decapitate you, your goal is simply to keep moving. Your main weapon is your trusty pistol, which has infinite ammo (thank god) and can take down your standard enemies in one shot, like a gun would actually do in the real world, come at me video games. And no, you cannot just stand there and shoot the conga line of death following you along the train until they are all dead, trust me, I tried. They are infinite. They are inevitable. You stay in one place for too long, you are dead.

Where Speed Limit really shines is in its timing. Every time you die, you learn more about the level that you are playing. You discover the number of guards in a train carriage, the location of barriers that you could crash into on the road, the movement pattern of enemy helicopters. The more you play Speed Limit, the calmer you are. It is an intriguing experience to say the least, especially since during my first playthrough, I panicked and screamed a lot as I sprinted down the train carriage, with like twenty knife wielding men chasing me. Now, when I play that level, I move almost rhythmically, dodging and weaving like I am Neo from the Matrix.

Gamechuck have taken all the good points from the arcade games of old, such as a kickass soundtrack and unique mechanics that do not get overused to the point where they are not fun anymore, and turned it into a high-paced, action packed romp through childhood nostalgia but without the dodgy control schemes and constant drainage of our loose change. Even the transitions between levels feel smooth and badass, as you ramp your motorbike into a helicopter or hurl yourself from the roof of a moving train into a passing car. Honestly, I felt cool and I am sat writing this article in a hoodie with my weekly dungeons and dragons’ session in about an hour.

The more runs of Speed Limit that you play, the more detail you notice. Suddenly you think to yourself, why is that helicopter crashed over there? Why is there a hole in the roof of this train? Why are all these government people trying to kill me? Why do they have throwing knives? Why are the battleships on some mundane river near the city? Who was that person at the beginning? Now, I am not going to spoil it for you. I feel that it is something that you need to witness yourself, after all, it took me by surprise. There are not many games that I can outright say that you should play instead of watching footage, but Speed Limit feels like one of them. From time trials to achievements, there is so much to this little indie game that there is no way that I could get through it all in an article. Plus, there is an achievement for ruining the paint job on an enemy’s vehicle in a particular stage and that genuinely made me laugh when I received it.

You have boss fights, kickass music, cool level transitions, intriguing story clues, unique level mechanics and a beautiful art style inspired by the arcade games that a lot of us grew up with. What more could you want?

I want to say a massive, massive thank you to the whole crew at Gamechuck for being so awesome throughout all our conversations and interactions, as well as sorting out a switch review code for me amidst the chaos of the world. They are an amazing indie company that deserve all the love they can get, and I guarantee they are worth every penny you might spend on their games.

Have a good week all,

CaitlinRC.