Unpossible

 
Developer: Acceleroto, Inc
Steam Release: Jul 2015
Hours Played: 1.1
Similar To: AaAaAA!!! / The Collider / Cosmophony / Fermi's Path / Race The Sun / Thumper
Rating: 5/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
Synesthetic and Proun+ may be little known forerunners of this genre but Unpossible is a real blast when it comes to making the move from mobile to the PC and onto Steam. From a first-person perspective you view a dark neon lit blue world from above the clouds with the city's metropolis glimmering in the distance. You travel at break-neck speed along a tube or pipe, to a thoroughly exhilarating soundtrack, while avoiding geometrically shaped obstacles that jut out from the said pipe. Twist and turn, weave and sway as the obstacles whoosh past. Collide with any obstacle and it's instantly game-over! On the easiest track, other than the tutorial track, a game may take between one or two minutes for the average player while on the more difficult settings you'll be lucky to get past 50 seconds!
  

BALANCE & PACE
Although not as unforgiving as a Super Hexagon or a Velocibox, Unpossible is still an incredibly fast game. On the kinder level such as Simplicity, you'll initially roll along relatively gently as you skim past the paddle like structures. These signal their danger early with easy-to-anticipate visual clues. As you glide along and the speed picks up, you're going to pass looping circular obstacles that may be easy to negotiate at first, but give it 60 seconds and the intensity kicks in as obstacles become more dense and trickier to pass. Now you'll need to be ready to anticipate corkscrew type loops that swiftly weave in both directions along with barriers with just one narrow exit point. Notch up the difficulty by selecting tougher tracks and all this comes at you thicker and even faster as you see your best-time dramatically decrease.    

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
Unpossible may have made the move over from mobile to PC but the game runs as smooth as butter and, with that thrilling soundtrack ringing in your ears as you zoom blissfully along, you're thrown into the zone with sizzling aplomb. The game cries out to be played with a decent set of headphones. What is most impressive is the framerate which needs to be spot-on for a game like this and Accelerato does not disappoint. You are on a virtual futuristic rollercoaster with absolutely zero, zilch naught stutter or lag. Outside of the game, there are effectively three difficulty settings that really depend on the track you elect to play: Simplicity, Futile and Ultra with each having its own daily equivalent. These are selected by scrolling through screens but I would have preferred these to have occupied just one screen for swift and easier access.
  

PROGRESS SYSTEM
Progress through Unpossible is made by achieving the best time in each of the three types of difficulty (and their daily equivalents). Your best time along with your last recorded time is displayed clearly at the track-select screen which you scroll through when starting the game or after smashing into yet another black wall. Ultra, the toughest difficulty, is locked until you have clocked 60 seconds under the Futile difficulty. Finally, clicking the bar-chart symbol at the track-select screen while in-game will show you the best online scores but you're inexplicably only shown the top 7 for that track. If you want to see how your own time fairs in the wider scheme of things you need to click on the trophy icon that brings up the Steam overlay. A slight immersion breaker and not entirely ideal in my humble opinion.  
 

CONCLUSION

As an extremely intense endless runner and at just one or two minutes per game, Unpossible is likely not a game you'll want to play for more that 15 minutes at a time. As a short mind-blowing blast though, it has plenty enough to rival similar titles like  Audiosurf or Race The Sun. My main gripe is the odd decision to cast the player out of the game into Steam overlay mode when viewing high scores - and this is made worse when it will only show you the score for the currently selected track. Finally, for the sake of variety, what about having a yellow, red, green or orange track for each of the difficulties? More a suggestion than a criticism - and with the game currently retailing at its mobile price it is an absolute steal for such a stunning game.