Game difficulty can be tuned before a race if necessary, and players simply need to be in third place or greater to advance. SkyDrift Infinity does not offer much in the way of customization for controls nor does it offer visual assistance options. Still, it is not impossible to win races with the others, but I think having the game would have been better off had it made all plane types equal and instead focus on skill. Most of the time you can dodge a lot of power-ups anyway, and the game inserts you back fast enough that I had no reason to jump to the tankier or better-handling planes. Personally speaking, I am happy with the different play styles the planes offer, but I never found a reason to choose a plane that did not have a maxed-out speed stat. There are also plenty of skins to choose from (such as some wicked Darksiders vinyls!), all unlockable through the campaign or a specific challenge. Some might weather against power-ups better, some might handle turns better, and some are all about speed. There are plenty of planes to choose from, each with a different focus. But I thought they were varied enough to fit the game’s fifteen-dollar price point well. The number of tracks is also on the low side, with reverse stages taking up the other half of the list. Obstacles are mainly rocks, some hard turns, and occasionally a tower might explode, but I do not mind this as too many stage hazards just is not my thing when other players can chuck rockets at you often. Though the game places arrows everywhere to make sure you do not veer off track, sometimes that is inevitable in a game of flying versus land vehicles. They are not bad, per se, but they can be hard to navigate at times. There is also speed racing, which focuses entirely on speed and getting first place, as well as a survivor mode which is all about making sure you are not in the last place when the timer runs out. Each power-up has its ups and downs, and nearly all of them can be countered making for less annoying races. These can either be rockets that lock on to other players, a mini-gun that must be manually aimed, repairs slash shields, and bombs. Power racing, for example, pits players against each other with power-up items that can be picked up over the course of the map. It is a game with no-nonsense and focuses on its select modes to a good degree. Twists and turns make for tight-knit races. Even better, you do not need to be first, just second and third is enough to qualify (and trust me, you have to try to give third place to the computer racers). With eight stages, each needs only a portion of the races within to be completed and can be done on difficulties easy, medium, and hard.

There is no story campaign, so no need to brush up on SkyDrift lore-just pick up and play. Playing through the campaign gives the player an idea of what to expect from maps and modes, as well as a place to test how fast you can go before you go against players online or locally with three other people.

It is an arcade racer in the skies, offering a good selection of race modes, plane types and skins, and maps. Well not quite there is drifting in the sky, but you will also be flying through twists and turns, occasionally explosive environments, and AI slash real opponents who will gladly chuck several thousand bullets and rockets at the most inopportune times. SkyDrift’s gameplay loop can be deciphered right from its name: it is all about drifting in the sky.

Short of being ten years old now, SkyDrift Infinity holds up very well for an XBLA title of yore and will be a great addition to anyone’s racing game collection on Xbox. This time we are going to fly arcadey planes in SkyDrift Infinity, a remaster of the 2011 SkyDrift on Xbox Live Arcade (“XBLA”).

Cars, karts, boats, horses-you name it-can be retrofitted into a genre as old as time itself. There are some genres of games that you can never have enough of, and one of those happens to be racing.

Skydrift infinity platform