Every once in a while, I like to fire up a quick game that doesn’t require me to invest hours to get immersed. I’ve particularly had fun with Golf With Your Friends and Cloudbuilt, which make for great experiences thanks to their fast-paced physics-based gameplay. So, once Kinetic Edge caught my radar, I knew I had to give it a go. I was immediately interested after seeing how pretty the visuals were, even in their minimalistic nature. Let’s see how my excitement panned out!

Kinetic Edge‘s main hook is its racing mode. As a small ball, a la Marble Blast, you are tasked with getting to the end as soon as possible. However, don’t think it’s a straight shot. You’ll have to navigate by platforming the colorful shapes on the track with some well-timed dashes and double-jumps, accounting for momentum and speed all the while. Saying that the controls in Kinetic Edge feel tight is an understatement. That’s the one thing this game needed to do right, and it passes with flying colors (literally).

At the time of writing, there are only seven tracks to race upon, but they’re lengthy and warrant replays if you want to get the best time. The age-old phrase of “easy to pick up, difficult to master” reigns true in Kinetic Edge, as this will be a delight for speedrunners who get to see their spot on the leaderboards upon completing a course. The variety between these seven racetracks is well thought out, making each unique and worth playing at least once.

There’s other modes of play that can be even more fun than the racing for some and are ripe for great multiplayer nights. The golf mode has 30 holes, and plays akin to the aforementioned Golf With Your Friends title. I can’t imagine how hilarious this mode would be experimenting with all of the available ball types, but it’s locked to golf ball and sphere, unfortunately. Here’s hoping this mode can get that added it-factor with the inclusion of the rest of the types.

In addition, there’s a few other modes to extend your Kinetic Edge gameplay. Aside from the racing, the flagship avenue of gameplay appears to be “The Gauntlet”, which is a meticulous long course that you must complete in seven minutes, with only one life. Developer SCT says on the Steam page: “You will rage.” This quirkiness from the dev is also present in the game’s tutorial, filled to the brim with one-liners as the player learns about the gameplay.

While Kinetic Edge is light on content to start, SCT has provided us with a roadmap for the rest of the year that sounds promising. April will see Pool (I have fond memories from Super Monkey Ball‘s pool mode), May more racing levels, June bringing puzzle levels, a co-op mode in September, and, most important of all, a Workshop mode TBD for level creation. Kinetic Edge is surely worth it if you’re into the above-mentioned games, but I’d imagine the experience will only get better once these modes are added!

A PC Review Copy of Kinetic Edge was provided by Seacorp Technologies for this Review.

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Kinetic Edge

$12.99

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Invigorating Visuals
• Nice Difficulty
• Variety in Game Modes

Cons

• Lacking in Content For Now
• Multiplayer is Dead