On repeated occasions, a few well-placed Ice Walls prevented me from landing a jump off a crucial ramp. Depending on the severity of the situation, I would either be knocked down into the ravine below, forced to gently navigate my way back to the track without being bounced around by the punishing collision detection, or my vehicle would become flipped upside down, preventing me from taking any kind of action. The latter was obviously the worst, mostly because I couldn't finish the race and earn more experience points and Point, "Hovorun's" form of in-game currency.

Poing can be used in the shop to rent (you only get them for a limited time) items of varying or no effect on the general gameplay. Some vehicles offer a slight increase in acceleration, top speed, handling, and/or drift while others offer vastly improved stats in particular categories while suffering in others. Scarves, hats, and new suits can enhance certain abilities, automatically generate gold coins, sometimes protect against attacks, etc. At high level competitive play, equipping your character to best utilize the track and combat enemies becomes a methodical process. But at the beginning, all players are stuck with just the clothes on their backs and the vehicle they rode in on.

This forces new players to deal with being at a severe disadvantage, only play against other low level racers, or by purchasing GO cash from the developer's website. Since experience points are gained from winning races, it's possible for someone to pay for better items using real money while still racing in the beginner server that only allows players with under 21,000 experience. Essentially this gives players with more real-world money a competitive advantage over others who may or may not have more natural racing ability. Not cool, man. Not cool.

As usual with MMOs like this, the title becomes considerably more enjoyable after the initial "I don't have anything" phase. Although, once players create the characters they want, there doesn't seem to be much to do after. The item count is extremely limited, with only a handful of choices in each individual category, so instead of working towards procuring even better equipment, most players play to earn money to hold on to what they currently have. Until a significant amount of more content is made available, "Hovorun's" potentially unbalanced and punishing gameplay isn't worth trudging through to get to the modestly rewarding endgame.

Review Kyle Stallock
October 9, 2009