Metal Drift Review

2022-11-27

Metal Drift is a fast-paced combination of racing and shooting action, all set in a competitive online environment. The game features a unique and innovative setting, lots of room for experimentation by the player, and last but not least, captivating style of gameplay that keeps you coming back for more. Despite some of its shortcomings, Metal Drift gained strong popularity and a constant fanbase.

Gameplay

You control a hovering vehicle in a futuristic environment where you're pitted against up to 12 other players. You need to race each other while exchanging all of your available ammunition supplies in a dynamic action that will have you turning tight corners and narrowly dodging missiles at the same time. Racing isn't actually an element in its traditional nature, but you will have to gain an advantage over your opponents if you want to get access to some of the important resources available.

The game is played in a team-based setting, and there's a good number of gameplay elements that accommodate to that – you'll have various ways to assist your teammates, help push them to victory, and even halt the enemy progress if you work together as a team.

There's a progression system that allows you to earn and unlock new upgrades, weapons, whole new vehicles, as well as cosmetic accessories such as simple re-skins. The only problem we had was the lack of camera options, and being forced to play from a first person perspective can get a bit annoying when you're playing a vehicle-based game.

Graphics and System Requirements

Metal Drift could've used a bit more polish in its graphics, but it doesn't fall too far behind other games of its class. It looks remarkably good during the intense combat scenes, and the weapons' special effects are obviously designed with lots of care and attention. Combat feels intense and the HUD is clean and streamlined, always providing you with important information.

The game isn't so demanding on your computer, so if you've got a 1.8 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and (mostly) any video card that can cope with DX9, you should be all set to engage in Metal Drift. There are some very slight optimization issues at several points where the large-scale battles can slow down the game, but this is quickly averted by simply looking away for a few seconds – it may sound counter-productive in a game where you're always aiming for your opponent, but it works.

Other

One problem we had with Metal Drift was its community – even though the game seems to be fairly popular among players, it doesn't have many of them online at the same time – although you'll still get to pick from a dozen good servers to play on, you'll sooner or later start recognizing the people you're playing with as you'll be seeing them a lot.

Conclusion

Metal Drift is an excellent title that only suffers from some minor optimization issues and lack of proper marketing – if it was just a little bit more popular, it has the potential to become a killer game.

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