Power Hover Guide
The game shows its world and tells its story through its visual design and it does a superb job at that. From sandworms to Giant spikes and mining monsters, everything is created so that you have a joy in exploring these levels. Truth be told, my main purpose for completing Power Hover’s levels were not about collecting batteries but to see what new wonders the game held next. Power Hover is a simple game with a superb visual aesthetic and sound design. There are a few problems you will encounter here and there but nothing will distract you from exploring its world. It is a very relaxing game and very easy to pick up and play. For its price, you can’t go wrong with Power Hover.
The core of the game is level-based, where you're trying to make it to the end in one piece. You collect batteries that will go toward your star rating, with greater rewards in terms of energy bolts, the game's currency, for better star ratings. The batteries are in fixed positions each run, but you'll occasionally be pursuing a mysterious figure who drops the batteries, and the occasional bomb, so you need to react quickly or learn the level layouts. Getting 3 stars on most fixed levels is doable through effort; getting 3 stars on the endless levels requires some real patience and skill to get far enough to get the better ratings. Good luck with that! The levels present a fantastic amount of variety, not just in terms of environments, but in terms of elements in those environments and how they play. Indoor levels will force you dodge lasers and other traps. Tubular levels make you deal with realizing which direction you're spinning in, and how you perform in the new environment. You'll have levels with more of a cinematic feel, as they shift the angle of the camera to be more dramatic, as you dodge giant creatures, and see more of the wild expanses ahead.
The game's story is told through optional tape players you find on the world map, though it's easy to miss them. The hoverboarding has a particular physics and resistance to it, where you're not just moving freely left and right, but you have some momentum and weight as you move in a direction. Move very quickly from one side of the screen to the other, and you'll find it difficult to shift back to the other side. I don't know what real-world hoverboards, if they ever exist, will feel like, but this feels like it would be close! You just have to tap and hold on either side of the screen to move left and right, but you have good control over your hoverboard. It feels a lot like Power Hover was aiming for free-to-play, with the game being based around getting three stars on levels, with wait timers for some of the in-world things like extra lives that you can collect, and the level gates. This could just be that the game decided to use the elements that free-to-play games otherwise tend to incorporate, in order to feel familiar to casual players. Or, it could be that the game was going to be free-to-play and then a pivot was made at some point before release. Either way, you probably will recognize the exoskeleton of the game, but will be pleased that the upgrades to your starting life count and continues don't cost too much, you just have to get three stars in more levels.
There’s nothing so clunky as a story you merely glimpse snatches of what might have been, getting a sense of the strange world through what you see. There are deserts infested with giant sandworms, and huge expanses of water peppered with mines. A dead, grey city exists in stark contrast to sun-drenched landscapes populated by colossal spider-like drilling apparatus, spiked legs determined to stab an inconvenient hole in your droid. Power Hover’s level-based structure is perhaps its smartest move, though. In a gaming ecosystem awash with procedurally generated fare, having something concrete today becomes a differentiator.
Each level can be learned, enabling you to perfect your route and snag more batteries; and as you progress to tougher challenges, often in pursuit of the thieving android, you discover how clever some of the optimum routes are, and how difficult it will be to ace them, even when every turn and obstacle is committed to memory. You might start by barrelling along the insides of a pyramid, before realising it was seemingly built by a psychotic pharaoh with a penchant for laser death and making the entire world spin until you’re sick. Or in the gorgeous Air stage, you belt along a tube-like track that snakes through the air, which within seconds starts tossing you about as you desperately arc your way past whirling wheels of doom, and massive spikes that shoot out of the ground. This continues in each of the other five stages, which find their own inventive and ruthless ways in which to kill you time and time again. It feels a lot like Power Hover was aiming for free-to-play, with the game being based around getting three stars on levels, with wait timers for some of the in-world things like extra lives that you can collect, and the level gates. This could just be that the game decided to use the elements that free-to-play games otherwise tend to incorporate, in order to feel familiar to casual players.
Power Hover puts you in the shoes of a Robot with a hoverboard who is tasked to collect batteries and bring back power to the world. The story revolves around a city whose power source has been stolen and it went into complete blackout. You were tasked to chase down the thief and in the process bring back the power to the town. The gameplay of Power Hover is extremely simple, you slide left and right trying to avoid obstacles and collect batteries. But don’t be fooled by its simple aesthetic, the game throws a lot of difficult sections where you have to really test your skills. After you have completed the first couple of levels, you will be introduced to the thief who stole the power from the town.
The game then tasks you with chasing down the thief and take back what’s yours. It is not really a race as there is no time limit and you won’t overtake the thief throughout the game. Then what purpose does he serve? Along the way, he drops batteries at difficult paths and you have to be on his trail if you want to collect them all. In between these batteries, he will sometimes drop a bomb or two in your way which bursts as soon as you pass through them. Initially it seems that the thief is merely more than another character on-screen as his bombs are very easy to avoid. Slowly though he starts placing bombs right after a battery which makes it increasingly difficult to pass the levels. The game introduces you to new sections and obstacles in a very subtle way. Before you come toe to toe with the real thing, the game will tell you in a visual way how the machines or beasts work. All of this is told through environmental cues and you have to be careful about the environment you’re cruising through. The game also changes camera angles at correct times to give you a top down view for sections which are designed like mazes. The checkpoints are placed so that you can continue your journey after you have died without any sort of frustration. After each level you are awarded with stars which give you a specific amount of electricity which in turn unlocks buildings in the town which gives you various upgrades. After you unlock a specific amount of buildings with enough power you will unlock boss levels. Boss levels are endless levels which produce procedural generated machine madness in your way. They are much more difficult than the normal game and require you to accumulate a certain amount of points to unlock the next section of the city. Power Hover’s biggest challenge is not only passing through levels, but passing the levels while collecting the maximum amount of batteries.
