Death Sprint 66: The Ultimate Racing Death Game

(Intro)

Death Sprint 66 is an on-foot racing game where you pilot a mechanical robot with the sole purpose of defying the expectations of the crowds as you run, slide, drift, jump, and claw your way to first place. Set in what looks to be a dystopian cyberpunk themed world, your goal is to get through the course as fast as possible, while battling other contestants, both AI and other players. The game is all about speed, dodging obstacles, and getting first in the race. Nothing else matters. Except maybe screwing over your opponents from them winning the race. That always feels good.

(I am Speed)

The main mode you’ll most likely be playing is racing against other players. Depending on the lobby size, you might have some spots filled with AI, but that doesn’t mean they are a push over. They will roll you if given the chance. Your main objective in Death Sprint 66 is to win races. Set across 15 different courses of varying sizes, terrain, and difficulty you are tasked with learning those courses and using the mobility options available to you to go as fast as you can around the course and take first. There are plenty of ways to navigate these courses: branching paths, walls to run across, and hazards to avoid. Most tracks are multiple laps, but some depending on their size and difficulty might only be two or even one lap long. Games in general are quick and snappy, usually not lasing any more than maybe three minutes tops. But that’s a good thing; it leans into the whole point of this game which is to go fast. And there are a lot of ways to do so.Whether that’s using the wall running to maintain your speed, ziplining to avoid deadly obstacles, or drifting through and then launching yourself out of those drift ala Mario Kart style. The main mechanic that will keep you in the race is called surge. A pick up-able item that fills a gauge on the right of your screen. Each meter filled gives you a single large boost of speed, allowing you to either maintain the pace you are currently going at, or to fix a messy turn or death that resets you back to a low speed. There is no top speed in this game; if you are good enough, you can hit some ridiculous speeds. You definitely want to use surge liberally; as getting more meter is relatively easy. It can make the difference between first and second.

(Powerups)

On the courses there are these blue floating chips that you can collect which will give you a random powerup. Again, comparing to Mario Kart these are your item boxes. With a bunch of different tools at your disposal. Some offensive, some defensive, and some utility. I won’t go into each one specifically, but they are pretty straight forward once you see them. This is where the PvP element comes into play. In addition to being able to bump into your opponents during a race, you can use these powerups to mess with them. Whether it’s a throwable blade, a land mine, or bulldozing through the opposition with a powerful charging attack, use these to stop anyone that is ahead of you and get back into the rankings. You can only carry one, and your current placement in the race doesn’t determine which powerup you get. But they are valuable assets to your race no matter what position you are in.

(Short but Sweet)

As I mentioned earlier, these races are fast and short. A single race does not take long and early on you will be playing the game, and then the race finishes and your reaction will most likely be, that’s it? Which means the bulk of your experience will come from volume of races. As much as some would want longer tracks with more laps so the games are longer, I kind of prefer how fast everything is. You play this game at a break-neck pace, making sure you do your best not to screw up. And before you can even blink the race is over and you are loading into the next one. What’s nice is you can always practice tracks you are having trouble with in the PvE mode. There you can choose whichever track you’d like to play and even determine if you want AI bots or not. There’s also a single player mode, which essentially boils down to running races with some modifiers or challenges you need to complete during the race. It’s nothing too special, but having an alternative mode to just playing online is very nice. And by playing both modes, you can unlock some nice customization options for character. Different color pallets, emotes, profiles backgrounds, and statistics are all available to you the more you play the game. It’s nice; gives you a reason to keep playing.

(Comebacks are Non-Existent)

One of the major issues I have personally experienced with the game is how difficult or almost impossible it can be to make a comeback in a race. Should you screw up and die even just once, that can be a massive set back. Both because the respawn time allows racers behind you to catch up, but also because the game depending on where you died, will set you back full seconds behind from where it happened. Meaning you’ve lost even more progress because of the location the game decides to respawn you. And should that happen, you pretty much can’t win the race, unless the opponents make a massive mistake. It’s kind of a shame because when everyone is playing well and no one is dying to the course or each other, the back and forth that can happen between racers is hype as hell. This game moves so fast it’s difficult to tell where other people are sometimes without looking at the scoreboard. Since we’re speaking on some of the game’s shortcomings, the hitboxes of some obstacles in the course can be a little wonky sometimes. But to be fair, I would honestly attribute that to just how fast you can actually move in that game. If you slow down and dodge the death traps it makes more sense. But slowing down means you lose precious distance from your opponents. So, there’s a bit of risk and reward there, which is good. What isn’t so nice is sometimes playing online with a lobby full of AI. I imagine this game doesn’t have the largest player pool to pull from and that’s no one's fault. But this game truly is at its best when playing other people. But to defend the game, playing by yourself boils the game down to pretty much a time trail mode. Which personally, I don’t mind at all because as someone who enjoys that mode in tons of racing games, trying to one up your own best time is a rewarding challenge to me, but it not be for others. Still, with even just a couple of other players, all playing at their best, Death Sprint 66 is such an adrenaline pumping experience that should be experienced by any racing enthusiast out there.

(Outro)

I saw a trailer for this game about a month ago, and have been eagerly awaiting its release. And since then, having been playing a ton. It's a great little game to kill time if you have something to do later, or to coerce your friends into getting so you can have a super smash brothers' brawl inside a racing game. For the asking price of $20, there is definitely that much in terms of playable hours. Are you going to dump hundreds of hours into this game? Maybe. Depends on how adamant you are about getting better and trying to see how fast you can truly go. Because that’s where the enjoyment comes for me. Getting better so I can go faster and really see how far I can push this game’s mechanics. Death Sprint 66 is such a unique take of racing games; I would suggest anyone who is tantalized by either the world or the gameplay to give it a shot. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know in the comment section down below your thoughts on this game and be sure to subscribe for more gaming experiences that require you to lock the hell in. I hope to see you in future ones.