Sega Amusements and 3MindWave recently launched their latest racing game, Apex Rebels, to the market. Perhaps you’ve had the chance to give it a play already, or you’re still on the lookout for one. Either way, we’ve got some new media to share today – the cars.
Stay tuned later this week for a more detailed look at the 4th track, Sakura Motorland! If you are an Arcade Heroes member on YouTube however, you can find a sneak peek of that in the Community tab. 🙂
Cars
One of the most crucial aspects of any racer are the vehicles which players drive. They essentially serve as characters for the game, and with the right design, they come with personality too (see the Hornet, Daytona USA). Speaking of Hornets, you might notice a nod to that in the first vehicle here, the AC7B. Apex Rebels also has several such ‘nods’ tucked away into the tracks, which is a nice touch.
Here’s a slideshow containing each of the five selectable cars. Aside from different skins, there are some variations/changes to each car model. Also note that these are not the only skins in the game:
As you can also see, each car comes with different stats; the AC7B is the most balanced, while the Mach focuses on handling/boost, the Neon-QT favors speed & acceleration, the LA-Orizzonte also favors speed but trades handling for boosting, and finally the R-GT is strong on everything except acceleration. This alongside the four available race tracks does ensure some decent content variety.
References & Differences
Besides the obvious Daytona Hornet homage, it's fun to look at the different cars and infer further possible influences - could the Neon-QT be a Crazy Taxi cousin? I was told at IAAPA that there were early plans to make more overt references to others, such as the custom red Italian convertible made famous by a certain legendary driving game series... but these were kyboshed over licencing difficulties.
I unfortunately can't give much advice on which car to use yet - when I played the early 70% complete version of the game at IAAPA, I only gave the AC7B a try across the tracks (and AH co-contributor Ted says he did the same at EAG last month). It was definitely a good all-rounder in terms of play style though, and probably the best of the bunch for people having their first try on it.
I'll have to give one of the others a go when I get a chance to play the game at Amusement Expo in Las Vegas, which is taking place just over a month away from today. Currently, we know that it, Zombies! Ready Deady Go, and Sega's usual mix of standard redemption will be exhibited there.
Apex Rebels is available for arcades to purchase now, and should be turning up at a location near you soon. For more details on that, click here. Which of these cars do you like the look of most?
