If you’re in the mood for futuristic cars that shoot at one another you might like—no, it’s not Mario Kart and it’s not Wipeout either, though it’s definitely inspired by the latter. The name’s Pacer and it’s a futuristic racer where your fancy anti-gravity vehicles zoom around tracks while also shooting one another with guns and such.
“With the depth of a simulation and the excitement and combat of arcade racers, Pacer provides a true test of player skill, reflexes, and strategy,” say R8 Games. “The single-player campaign lets you develop from a trainee Pilot, advancing through 10 unique race teams from around the world unlocking rewards and challenging yourself in blisteringly fast races in an effort to become the Pacer world champion.”
As for the weapons, R8 say you can tweak how they function, opting for more damage, higher fire rate, or multi-targeting. In multiplayer, Pacer pits up to ten pilots against one another in seven different game modes on 14 tracks.
Pacer also boasts a list of over 80 “banging tunes” to jam to while you race including “the original anti-gravity racing composer Tim Wright aka CoLD SToRAGE alongside an incredible line-up including; MethLab, Ed Harrison, DubFX”.
If it sounds like Wipeout, yup, you’ve got the right of it. Pacer first popped up under the name Formula Fusion, being created by some folks who’d worked on the Wipeout series previously. It launched under that name in 2017 and released several patches afterwards but apparently couldn’t quite stick the landing. In 2019, R8 games announced their plans to remove the game from sale, put in some more work, and change its name.
That’s all said and done now and they’ve returned to the starting line to shift Pacer out of park. Off to the races with you, or whatever one says about shooty cars. “This is just the beginning, we have a lot of plans for the competitive gaming side of Pacer,” says senior producer Steve Iles.
Pacer is out now on Steam where it’s currently discounted by 15% to £29.74/€33.99/$33.99 until November 12th.