Distance

You’re not going to find many racing games out there like this one. A sleeper hit of a racing game that humbly lies under the radar of most arcade racing fans. Nearly perfect.

The car has the ability to jump, fly, and rotate with thrusters. This freedom of movement is a rare sight in a racing game and the level design reflects that. As you progress, you’ll be jumping around so much the game is practically a car platflormer. Carkour if you will. Mastering the car’s mechanics is immensely satisfying.

What’s more is that Distance has a baffling amount of content to play through.
The campaigns are an amazing experience on their own, but hiding beneath the campaigns is a huge set of Arcade levels. 100+ of them in fact. After you’re done with the campaigns there are hours upon hours of levels to play and master. Each level can drastically change visual design to such a degree that almost no level feel the same.

The Arcade is a real showcase of the power of Distance’s editor. This game has THE BEST level editor in any racing game. The amount of features it has makes it dangerously close to being a game engine. I may be exaggerating a bit, but the level editor allows so much customization for people to express their creativity. It feels illegal. Users have created 5000+ levels on the workshop and many of them have breathtaking quality. In fact, many levels in the arcade are ones from the community.

I cannot stress enough how much of a gold mine is hiding in this game. My hours are not a joke. I’ve been playing this game for a decade and I still have fun every time.

There’s only a few negative criticisms I have for the game.
The tutorial fails to mention a key detail about tricks and it’s that they cool down your car. A perceptive player may notice it since you can see it happening on the car, but I know many players who didn’t realize this fact until they were told.
Multiplayer is good, but lacking. You can race other player’s times from the leaderboard and you can host a lobby to play levels with other players. That’s it. It’s enough to have a good time, but anyone hoping for a more in-depth multiplayer experience may be disappointed. (The Playstation version lacks multiplayer lobbies)
There is also a significant difficulty spike between the 1st and 2nd campaign. The difficulty curve is much smoother in the Arcade levels, but most players stick to the campaigns first and it’s a daunting task to overcome for new players that were struggling with the mechanics.
It is also a shame that Playstation players cannot experience the custom levels as they are only available on the Steam Workshop. I highly recommend getting the game on Steam.

Everything else about the game is practically perfect. Seriously the amount of content is nutty. Arcade Sprint, Challenge, and Stunt levels. The fun little Trackmogrify mode. The Reverse Tag mode you can play with friends. The Level Editor allowing for endless content. Incredible depth in the mechanics.
I could write essays about the amount of detail the game has alone. There’s not even gameplay UI, it’s all on the car itself! It’s awesome!

Easily my favorite game of all time.