Sprint Vector (2018), the VR racing game that uses a unique locomotion system to send you speeding through the world’s Mario Kart-style tracks on your own two feet, is finally getting a free access weekend on Rift. Oh, and you might have the chance to win big at Oculus’ ongoing two-year Rift anniversary giveaway too.
Already in effect, Rifters can grab Sprint Vector for free right this second and play in its adrenaline-pumping multiplayer matches. Free access continues until April 9th at 3 AM ET (local time here).
To enter in a chance to win a prize, you’ll need to play a multiplayer match on Saturday, April 7th between 1PM – 2PM PT (local end time here). And no, you don’t have to win the match to enter, you just have to play during that one-hour window. Prizes include Oculus Store credits, a brand-new PC, and the exclusive “Golden Account” that unlocks 100 games for free.
If you miss out on this weekend’s giveaway, next weekend marks the last chance to try as Oculus will open a new free access weekend for a yet-unannounced game.
What makes Sprint Vector so unique? Developers Survios dub their novel locomotion scheme “Fluid Locomotion,” a system which requires you to pump your arms as if you were running in place in order to move. You can also think about it as if you were skiing with ski poles, but instead of pushing off the ground with a pole, you thrust your arms downward while activating the trigger button on your controller, thus moving you forward.
It really is massive amounts of fun, but just make sure to keep a bottle of water and a towel handy for longer sessions. Check out why we gave Sprint Vector a solid [9/10] in our review.
Having just celebrated a successful closed beta, which showed off some of the game’s new mechanics and solo challenge mode, Survios now says its infectious footracer Sprint Vector is set to launch on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on February 8th. PlayStation VR players will have to wait until February 13th to join in the fun.
Sprint Vector features a unique locomotion system, which Survios dubs ‘Fluid Locomotion’. By pumping your arms, you generate forward motion, much like a skier might when using ski polls. But it’s not just about skating your way to the finish; you have to jump, climb, drift, fling, and fly at speeds that on paper sound impossible in VR. We’ve followed Sprint Vector since it was first revealed back at GDC last year, and can attest to just how comfortable the high-speed racing experience really is.
Much like the Mario Kart franchise, Sprint Vector features power-ups like weapons, traps, and nitro to keep things interesting; although you’d be forgiven if you forgot all about it while desperately pumping your arms, tossing yourself 30 feet into the air and flying to hit that critical speed boost to inch you into first place.
The closed beta only featured a fraction of the game’s content, so here’s a full list of the game’s features:
Competitive multiplayer matches: Public and private online multiplayer modes pit up to eight players against each other in intense, high-speed races as you vie for a spot on the Global Leaderboards.
12 competitive race tracks: Scale towering pyramids and plunge into alien ruins, leap across bottomless pits while dodging debilitating blobs of sludge, or survive the trap-riddled streets of an ancient city. A dozen complex race courses full of obstacles, alternate paths, and game-changing power-ups make for endless replay value.
Customizable solo play: Run the course at your own pace and learn the ropes with customizable solo game settings.
Nine challenge courses: Take on these diabolical courses designed to test your sprinting prowess to the extreme. Tackle three specific challenges across nine single-player challenge courses with Local and Global Leaderboards.
Eight intergalactic competitors: Choose from eight colorful characters pulled from every corner of the galaxy, from notorious street artist Daxx to ethereal Luna to streetwise hammerhead Hendrix, each with multiple skins to unlock.
Power-ups galore: Utilize a wide range of power-ups, from explosive proximity mines to nitro speed and racer-seeking rockets, to gain an advantage over the competition.
Survios also tells us that a cosmetic skin pack will be available to all PC racers free of charge, which are said to have an “international spin just in time for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.” These international-inspired skins represent 16 countries and are available across all eight playable characters.
Sprint Vector, the upcoming VR footracing game from Raw Data (2017) studio Survios, went into closed beta last week. Now with a few multiplayer matches under my belt and a number of solo challenges (and possibly some overextended elbows), it’s clear the studio’s so-called “adrenaline platformer” is aiming to impress with a number of new modes, some new mechanics and a thick coat of polish.
I’ve had the opportunity to play Sprint Vector multiple times since it was first debuted at GDC last year. Every time I approached it, I got a little less horrible at drifting through the cartoonish courses. I was always relegated to playing head-to-head with a far too lenient handler or developer though, who more often than not were more concerned with showing me the ropes than punishing me outright. Now, having played what could easily be mistaken for a consumer-ready game, I am humbled.
The closed beta featured three solo challenge maps with three modes each, and three competitive maps which could either be played solo vs AI, or in an 8-player online race.
image by Road to VR
Having played a few times before, I thought I was clear to skip the tutorials and head straight into my first competitive race. Boy, was I wrong. Landing second to last, and seeing my fellow racers finish the course way before me, I decided to go back to the basics for fear of missing something important. Divided into three sections—basic, intermediate, and advanced—there’s plenty to learn when it comes to mastering the locomotion system in Sprint Vector; you have to skate, drift, jump, fly, climb – all while keeping an eye on your opponents.
Instead of hitting the multiplayer mode again (fool me once), I started out fresh from the tutorial on the newly revealed solo challenge maps.
While there are only three right now—Driftway – a deceptively simple beginner track, Killer Boost – a track littered with boosts and tons of jumps, and Sidewinder – a ‘grip stream’ nightmare—it was easy to lose a good chunk of time playing each of these through their three different modes: time trial, coin collection, and hardcore one-life. Hardcore one-life pumps you full of nitro so you never stop moving forward at high-speed, meaning you have to dial in on your steering, shooting and flying to get the best time.
I could easily spend time honing my skill to climb the respective leaderboards, but even after polishing for an hour, it became clear that I simply wasn’t anywhere near good enough yet to post any meaningful result on the challenge board, not yet at least.
Returning to the ‘skate park’, or the lobby filled with air boosts and grip streams, I spent some quality time pumping my arms, diligently playing attention to the speed meter at my lower register. Soon enough, after some more practice, I was getting some momentum to my strides, releasing the trigger button just as I pumped my arm down to my hip.
image by Road to VR
Now after some bonafide training, I was ready for my first multiplayer. This time I hit my strides correctly, picked up my power-ups and traps (just like in Mario Kart) and finished in a respectable third place. I got a chance to use the game’s weapons for the first time too – a standard mix of missiles, nitros, and slowdown traps that come part and parcel with these sorts of arcade racers.
It’s clear there’s still a lot to learn about each course and how to best attack it, but I felt I’d finally understood how to move in the world and have that 1:1 physical engagement with my surroundings. The wizards over at Survios have certainly boned up on their Oculus Best Practice Guide too, as it felt completely nausea-free throughout.
Interesting side note: I got a chance to prove to myself just how much of a workout the game really is. According to my Fitbit, I have an average resting heart rate of around 50-60 beats per minute (bmp). While playing Sprint Vector however, the heart rate monitor told me I had entered into the ‘fat burn zone’ for nearly 20 minutes, with my heart rate jacking up to over 94 bmp. If my heart pumped any faster (over 131 bmp), I would have inched into the ‘Cardio zone’.
There was one unfortunate side effect after playing a straight hour of multiplayer: tennis elbow. It seems during my quest to do my best, and pump my arms like crazy, I was overextending the joints in my elbow with my feverish downstrokes, leaving the telltale pain that I had felt back in high school when I was into karate. While it’s not a show stopper, I’ll have to pay more attention to how I play from now on so I don’t develop the world’s first case of Sprint Vector elbow.
Sprint Vector feels and looks ready. And now that I’ve had my real training, I’m ready to head into the full version, which is slated to launch globally on Rift, Vive and PSVR in Q1 2018.
