Street Trace: NYC Hands-On

Microsoft showed off a number of upcoming Xbox Live Arcade games at a recent press event in San Francisco. Among these games was the previously unannounced Street Trace: NYC. At first glance, the game appeared to be nothing more than a simplistic hoverboard racer, but we're pleased to report that there's much more to it.

For starters, you'll be packing no fewer than four different weapons every time you step onto your hoverboard, including mines, rockets, a pulse pistol, and a weapon called "stampede" that launches multiple bouncing projectiles at a low trajectory. Each of the four weapons is mapped to a different shoulder button. You'll be able to target enemies with the right analog stick while using the left stick to control your board. Another noteworthy feature found in Street Trace: NYC is that the colorful streams of light, which trail behind each hoverboard, afford a significant speed boost to anyone passing through them. This, combined with the aforementioned arsenal, means that even when you're in last place, there's a good chance that you'll be able to get back on terms with the opposition.

In addition to standard races, we were able to check out three other event types during our time with Street Trace: NYC, including deathmatch, hunter, and chaos. The deathmatch game took place in a relatively small arena with plenty of rails to grind on, as well as lots of weapon and health pickups scattered all over the place. Grinding on rails might not seem like a good idea in a deathmatch scenario. However, you don't have to worry about keeping your balance or steering your board once you get onto a rail and can concentrate more on using your weapons. The hunter match took place in the same arena and tasked one player with holding onto (being surrounded by, actually) a yellow orb for as long as possible while the remaining players attempted to steal it from the first player. This was definitely the mode that we had the most fun with on this occasion, although the artificial intelligence of our CPU opponents was definitely lacking. The final gameplay mode, chaos, was set on the same large circuit as the race that we'd played earlier. However, instead of trying get across the finish line first, you need to collect flags that are scattered throughout the level and kill opponents to score points.

When playing the single-player tournament mode, we were able to spend money that we'd collected on upgrades for our board, which included power-ups for all of the aforementioned weapons. It also included faster engines, more powerful speed boosts, stronger shields, and better jumping ability. We suspect that Street Trace: NYC will be best enjoyed against other players rather than solo, though we were unable to test that theory on this occasion. We look forward to bringing you more information on Street Trace: NYC soon.