Speed Limit is a frustrating experience. It’s mercilessly tough, even on the easiest difficulty setting. You’ll die over and over – and over again. Yet you’ll keep playing. A game that embraces the old school, it sees you playing as …
Speed Limit is a frustrating experience. It’s mercilessly tough, even on the easiest difficulty setting. You’ll die over and over – and over again. Yet you’ll keep playing.
A game that embraces the old school, it sees you playing as a man armed with a gun who has to constantly flee from a range of enemies. It’s never explained why, but that’s part of the game’s stripped back charm.
Employing pixel-art visuals you run through (and on top of) a train, but also take control of a range of vehicles including a bike and jet fighter.
Every different section is presented in the style of arcade-era titles such as Space Harrier and Hang-On, and there’s no real let up in the variety.
This is by far the game’s greatest strength, as if you don’t enjoy one particular segment another one comes along soon enough.
The main issue is that some sections feel a little too unforgiving, requiring on trial and error a little more than is necessary. There are very few we managed to get through on our first (or second…or third) attempt.
You’re often wondering what to do in some segments – with some deaths subsequently feeling far too cheap.
This is offset a little by some generous checkpointing, and it’s to the game’s credit it manages to walk the line between frustrating and insultingly easy for the majority of its duration.
Speed Limit is not a long game though. Even if you die a lot – which you will – you’ll still likely get through it in one or two sessions of no more than 2 hours.
So it’s a hard game to fully recommend, especially as so many elements feel unfinished and several parts just feel too unfair.
Yet Speed Limit is somehow more than the sum of its parts, and has an undeniably endearing and addictive quality that makes it – for most of the time – pretty irresistible.
