Hold on to your bags, nuts, and elbows as Millennium Runners makes no discrimination for anything not locked down, sticking out, or hanging about. A no-gravity racer type thingy in the style of Wipeout, Redout 2, and perhaps Pacer, this is a fast-paced racer not built for Sunday drivers.
The gameplay is so frantic that I’d be surprised at how many people actually stick with it, as it’s not casual in the slightest. No, we aren’t going to be saying Dark Souls meets Gran Turismo or anything stupid like that, but it is certainly testing for a handful of reasons, and not just because it moves at a lightning pace.
As you might have guessed, Millennium Runners doesn’t feature an underlying narrative of a crack pilot saving a dying Earth by racing aliens, but the setting wouldn’t be far off from that, based on the futuristic landscapes you race around. It’s a nice-looking game, though at the expense of requiring a beast of a graphics card to run smoothly, and getting used to being last a lot.
Driving/racing games are among my favourites, though for clarity, I’m not great at these sorts of racers, so consider that with these comments. Vehicles will have an evolution phase – the higher the level, the faster it is. Let’s just say that I would be best suited to stabilisers. Hell, you could say that Millennium Runners has been inspired by the bowling alleys when the kids have the bumpers raised, as that’s what I was doing for the majority of the races – ricocheting off the sides, lacking any real momentum. And that’s only when I managed to turn the settings down to low.
It may have been years since I’ve played a game on lower than medium settings, but that’s all I could do to get it running on the Steam Deck. Ok, so it’s not a game broadcast as a good fit for the Steam Deck, but still, it would have been nice not to have to fiddle so much with the settings, as the feel on the controls was better than my desktop. That also spluttered – initially crashing on the first play, and having to watch the intro sequence each time without being able to skip was annoying.
Looks aren’t everything, and even on low settings, Millennium Runners is an alright-looking game, and I didn’t appear to have much issue with the technical aspects after that. I did have two occasions where the ship did a 180º and went the wrong way at a pivotal moment. One of those occasions prompted a swift exit from the game, just to pull back the curtain a little for a sneaky-sneaky into how frustrating that was.
When you are up and running, you have a choice of a career mode, time attacks and arcade options. The latter was undoubtedly the way forward to hone one’s skills, as pretty pointless attempting a campaign and not crossing the finish line until the other racers were popping their corks and celebrating. Thank Christ this isn’t online. The actual fluidity of the game will depend on your skills. Anyone can go fast in a straight line, but cornering at that speed is a pig when you’re not used to it. Paired with the combat side of things, it can be challenging.
Millennium Runners’ weaponry worked more in my favour than the AI, as it allowed me opportunities to fire rockets or place mines to get the upper hand. The shield was ultimately useless when riding at the back of the pack. Now I know how it feels to be at the end of a Mario Kart race where Bullet Bill brings you back into the game. I seldom get the latter, as typically in front in racing games, though this game got me until I maximised the boosts.
Like Wipeout, there are floor panels that propel you forward, as well as some rocket bursts and a dedicated nitro. In almost all games I’ve played from Supercars through to Cruis’n Blast, nitros have been a gimmick and typically saved for the last straight. The boosts in Millennium Runners are lifelines and, at least for me, the only thing keeping me in a race until I could git gud.
There aren’t too many racers like this, so it’s far from a crowded market. They all seem to feel the same as the last one, though with nothing being a standout. That’s the case here as visually and vicersally, it’s great (if you can get it to run properly), but the weapons, choice of ships and tracks, despite looking the part, are not much different from the last. That’s not a bad thing if you like this type of racer, but if you’re a bit on the fence whether you like Wipeout-like games, this isn’t likely to win you over.
