Apex Rebels (Arcade)

Racing games have been a fixture of arcades for ages and still remain a popular part of them even as arcades themselves wane. Driving with a steering wheel and pedals is a bit harder to do at home than other game types, and it’s a style of play that’s easy for people to understand immediately. People who likely drove to the arcade can let off some steam by ignoring traffic laws and let themselves go wild on the road in a video game, but after years and years of arcade racers being produced, it can be hard to imagine what one could do differently to stand out. Sega’s Apex Rebels takes an interesting approach though, not relying on brand names or huge gimmicks and instead just aiming to be as good a racer as it can be.

 

An Apex Rebels cabinet sees you sitting in what amounts to a bit of a half-car. The player sits in a seat that can be made to rock if the motion settings are enabled, the controls consisting of a steering wheel, brake and gas pedals, as well as a boost lever. There is no gear shift or any other complication, and while reaching over to push the lever up when you want to boost does give you reason to break from the more realistic racing controls for a bit, it also has a nice feature built into it. Moving the lever up will keep your boost going even if you let go of it, and when your boost has depleted, the lever moves down on its own, a simple feature but one that makes boosts easier to deploy and when you’re moving at high speed, you can even tell your boost is used up as you feel the lever adjusting. The lack of driving gears also helps unify the experience some, Apex Rebels marketing materials claiming to use a dynamic difficulty adjuster that senses a player’s driving skill and makes adjustments to how the driving controls to compensate. With up to four cabinets possible to link together in a shared race, what this might allow is players who have drifting and turn-taking down well to keep their small advantages while people who need a little help get a near imperceptible edge to their steering, although the advertising being vague about it does mean it might be tweaking the experience in other ways.

The more important piece to what makes Apex Rebels enjoyable to play though is how a race unfolds. After a race kicks off with a potential Rocket Start if you can get your engine power within the right range, you’ll find yourself in a 20 racer contest to place first after 3 to 5 laps around the track. Before you’ve gone far from the starting line though, each lap a trio of colored gates appear. The player is able to choose whether to drive into the green, blue, or orange gate, these setting your racing line for the current lap. Throughout the course, the checkpoint gates will be placed according to your selected line. The checkpoints you need to drive through can come in a variety of sizes, some so wide it would be harder to miss them and others small enough you have to pass through them perfectly on a potentially already tricky turn, the different race lines ranging in leniency and expectations while proving to be proportionally rewarding. You don’t technically need to drive through the checkpoints, but doing so plays into the game’s boost and level up systems.

 

Normally, going through a gate grants you some boost power as well as some credit towards leveling up. Your boost does have a max power where it is more potent than usual, the player able to choose between boosting in small bursts where it’s useful or going for the max which has a rather fun effect. If you boost into the back of other cars with enough speed, you will send them flying up into the air, making a powerful boost at the right time a great way to clear away computer controlled racers and not just gain a position advantage but briefly prevent the opponents from having a hope of catching up. The leveling up feature though can make your car even more effective. As you level up you’ll gain a few extra bonuses. Power Drift is one of the simpler ones, helping you build up boost power and maintain speed when drifting, but Slipstream comes with a nice touch. While this helps you speed up when you’re in the wake of cars in front of you, the Apex Rebels cabinet also uses air jets for an extra immersive touch. This can arise during other moments of play, but the amount of cool air you feel is increased considerably during slipstreaming while still being pleasant rather than distracting or obnoxious. Much like the boost lever’s gentle lowering, it’s a bit of sensory feedback that helps you focus on split second driving decisions instead of having to think too much about whether the game actually registers you as in a slipstream. The last power-up you can earn in a race at level 3 is the Aero Drift, a useful trick even if it is overemphasized in marketing and trailers where the car will leave the ground and briefly fly over other cars or bits of off-road. It’s not that flexible and more like an enhanced boost that happens to make you airborne, and since you also can’t ram other cars off the road during it you’ll find it might not always be preferable, but there is still some excitement to it actually going off when it’s desired.

All of the racing mechanics work together well for even solo races to have constant elements to focus on. Rather than just trying to take turns and take the lead, you need to consider your racing line to earn those boosts, figure out if you want speed now or maybe want to ram through the pack later, and leveling up can start to give you crucial edges like slipstreaming that further encourage you driving skillfully rather than just taking the roads however best you can. Apex Rebels provides five cars to pick from before a race with different attributes, some inspired by other Sega driving games although not as directly as you might imagine. One imitates the coloration of the famous Hornet from Daytona USA but changes its racing number and body shape while a taxi inspired car never states its Crazy Taxi inspiration out loud, ultimately being cute references for those in the know but not distracting for people sitting down and wanting to race supercars.

 

Whether you want a car that’s quicker to accelerate, better at taking turns, or has a strong boost, you’ll take you car out onto one of four tracks. Slam Circuit is the simplest but also the one five lap contest, Akina Ring is also a clear race course in appearance but more complicated in design and featuring a statue meant to evoke Akira from Virtua Fighter but also continuing the game’s emphasis on not being direct in its references, but the last two have more interesting visual differences while coming with a jump in difficulty. Motorland Sakura takes you to Japan with cherry blossom trees, shrine gates, and Japanese castles lining the tracks while Baak’ Speedway takes you the jungle and has you race past temples and waterfalls. Besides patches of off-road grass the actual course isn’t impacted much by the scenery, but the more advanced courses do throw in a lot more demanding twists and turns that play well with the gate system so that separate laps can feel distinct even once you’ve figured out the general layout of the track.

THE VERDICT: Perhaps Apex Rebels wants flying over racers with the Aero Drift to be what impresses players, but the simpler choices in design are what make Apex Rebels a racer worth returning to again and again. Picking from one of three racing lines each lap gives repeat runs over the same road some variety with the payoff being more of the game’s layered boost options. Smashing through other cars after working to build up your boost to max is satisfying and strategic while leveling up by hitting occasionally tricky checkpoints helps you improve your car over the course of a race, and little touches behind the cabinet make for easy to learn sensory clues to help you stay focused on the high speed action while still having all the information you need to succeed.

 

And so, I give Apex Rebels for arcade machines…

A GOOD rating. Making Aero Drift a cherry on top after racing well to earn it keeps Apex Rebels mostly grounded in a good way. The thrill of the racing isn’t from taking to the sky for a brief moment to clear a spot you would have been able to boost through otherwise. It’s tearing through the pack with the boost and having to adjust your turns to hit those checkpoint gates that give the racing its texture and excitement. Having to make snap judgments on if you should use your boost before it’s built up enough power to bulldoze the competition or if you might just want to skip a gate to take a turn better for a position advantage are important to making Apex Rebels about more than just turning the wheel at the right times. It may only have a few courses and cars, but it still has a driving system with texture to it because you have to do more than build up track knowledge to stay competitive. More tracks would certainly be welcome, although as an arcade racer it’s aiming more to be a game you visit occasionally rather than sitting down with for an extended period, but the driving lines are a smart way to still add variety to what is on offer. It’s a vital system and yet one that doesn’t become oppressive because you can select which one to take, although the arcade format does streamline it some so you don’t fully know what you’re getting into with the racing lines really and the game can only convey so much info at once in trying to be snappy and get you in the action quickly. When you’re getting those cool bursts of slipstream air, smashing through the racers you’ve been tailing, or just barely managing to hit the edge of a gate to earn credit, Apex Rebels provides those quick and simple highlights that all add up into a thrilling race whether you’re up against AI racers or other players.

 

While only the potential for a flying car near the end of a race really sounds like the kind of exciting draw that would set Apex Rebels apart from other racers, what really shines is how it hones regular racing. Other machines in the same arcade might have you driving specific vehicle types like bikes or jet skis, maybe they’ll have some twist like NFS Heat Takedown being about outrunning the cops on top of racing, but Apex Rebels is about exciting arcade racing while sticking to nearly standard cars. The more unique experiences might be good for a visit, but being a quality driving game in an arcade filled with other racers with a twist also gives Apex Rebels an edge, a game that can appeal to people looking for regular road driving but also packing in some nice design choices to elevate it beyond just trying to take turns and boost when it’s best to.