Sky Aces

Slide it, don't steer it

EMBER RALLY is a hand-painted arcade racer about one thing: the drift. Throw your car sideways into a canyon hairpin, hold the slide while the charge builds, then snap out of it into a turbo that fires you down the next straight. Every corner is a chance to bank speed instead of losing it.

Three circuits, each with its own personality. Ember Canyon is tight and technical, threading between sunset mesas and under towering rock arches. Coral Straits is a fast causeway skimming the ocean, where the barriers are the only thing between you and the water. Mesa Highway climbs onto an exposed mesa road high above a sea of cloud, where the cool blue light and the drop on either side make every mistake feel enormous.

Three rivals fight you for the line the whole way — braking for the corners, drifting through them, taking the inside when you leave it open, and leaning on your bumper when you don't. Chain boost pads on the tight line, bank your turbo, and hold your nerve on the last lap.

Every car, cloud and canyon wall is drawn in flat comic-book colour with bold black ink outlines, so the whole race reads like a graphic novel at two hundred kilometres an hour.