The long-awaited Travel Through Time Volume 1: Northern Lights race from Zosya Entertainment is out

June 25, 2021, 17:45 Mikhail Sudakov

Zosya Entertainment studio has finished their long project, started by Oleg Orijin God knows which year. I'm talking about the racing game Saab: Travel Through Time, which was cancelled a long time ago, and now has been revived as Travel Through Time Volume 1: Northern Lights.

And it's not just a race, but a story race - the events unfold over several decades, the game abounds with animated screensavers, dialogues and other stuff. The events unfold in Sweden, and you will have to ride six cars made in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s (though at least one motorcycle is among them).

As always with Zosi, the game looks great - cute car models, lots of different objects on the side of the road (some of them are even fun to fly apart upon impact!), "dynamic" lighting (if you pass under a bridge or in a tunnel, a shadow will fall on your car), all kinds of obstacles like a crossing train, changing time of day and weather conditions, and a very decent frame rate (up to 25 fps).

Gameplay is also good - Travel Through Time is much more diverse than Just a Gal and noticeably easier than Drift!. Although you can't avoid the usual for this studio complications in the very first stages of the game - first of all, you by default drive a car with a manual gearbox (it's historically accurate, but bothers those who are used to driving on "automatic"), and secondly, right on the initial track there's a train, before which you just can't brake, if you don't know about it beforehand. But the rest of the local rules are simple - don't forget to change gears, slow down on especially sharp turns and try not to hit trees and poles, it greatly slows down your car. But bumping other cars is not so fraught - because of that the speed does not drop much.

The title of the game - Travel Through Time Volume 1: Northern Lights - hints explicitly that sequels dedicated to other countries and other cars are waiting for us. Who knows, maybe "Zosya" will get to the domestic auto industry and finally shame the crafts like LADA Racing Club.

You can download the game completely for free from the official site or from "Perfect Pixel". And in July the developers promise to release a physical edition on cassette with CD soundtrack included (now you can choose embedded AY-music or full silence to enjoy music from CD when you start the game).

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)