Drift Stage coming to Kickstarter next week, but you can play a demo now

How can it be that we haven't mentioned Drift Stage before now? I mean, look at it. It's an 80sy/90sy racing game that mixes gorgeous, low poly car models and environments with beautifully chunky pixel art. The result is something that would have felt right at home on the Sega Dreamcast. Because this is the space year 2015, however, it's coming to Kickstarter next week, though developers Super Systems have released a very early pre-alpha demo to keep us occupied in the meantime.

Comprising a time trial race around a single, nighttime city track, this might initially seem like a bit of a slim demo, but that's before you hit Start (on the 360 pad, at least) and see the heavenly words 'Photo Mode' jutting out at you. A few dedicated people are going to spend a lot of time getting some great shots with this feature, which lets you pause the game at any point and fly around with a free camera to take the perfect snapshot (the screenshot key is F9, by the way).

The full game, judging by the menu, will feature a fulsome range of career and multiplayer modes, with Steam Workshop support integrated from the main menu. (It's already been Greenlit, in case you were wondering.)

I'll leave you with a video of the time trial mode in action. Man, I miss OutRun.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.