NeverSynth

My Saturday-night co-op radar went off the moment I read 'rhythm driving simulator,' because that pitch is genuinely great on paper. You cruise a neon-soaked endless highway in third person, lane-switching to collect glowing beat pickups while a synthwave soundtrack rolls. Sounds like a chill banger for the end of a long week. Then you actually play it. The core action is about as stripped back as it gets: four lanes, left and right inputs, beat pickups that act as in-game currency, and pillars that dock cash when you clip them. Collect enough money and you unlock one of six locations, skyscrapers to palm coast to a neon tunnel, plus a small roster of cars. The progression loop is thin, but the one genuinely solid feature is the ability to load your own locally stored music and let the game generate a course around it. If you fire up a banger from your own library, the neon visuals do look sharp on high settings. That part works, and it is honestly the only reason the word 'rhythm' belongs anywhere near the title. The problem is that the procedurally generated beat placement has no relationship to the music underneath it. Pickups appear at random across the lanes, including at opposite ends simultaneously with no clean way to reach both. Critics and community reviewers alike have pointed out that this kills any sense of flow or feedback. You are not riding the beat; you are just flicking left and right hoping the next spawn lands within reach. For a genre where the whole point is making movement feel musical, that is a foundational miss. Players on Steam have also flagged clunky UI, a sluggish feel to the car itself, and performance issues on lower-spec rigs that seem inexplicable given how simple the game is visually. Fun for four drunk friends? Not a chance, there is no multiplayer, no split-screen, no competitive mode, nothing. It is solo only, and even as a solo chill-out experience it runs out of road fast. The six locations and six cars are unlocked by grinding the same barebones loop, which reviewers have compared unfavourably to mobile endless runners with more personality. If you genuinely want a game that turns your music library into a playable track, the Audiosurf series gives you real rhythm mechanics built around the same custom-music premise, and it holds up far better. If you pick this up in a bundle for almost nothing and treat it as a ten-minute screensaver with steering, you will get exactly that. Going in expecting a proper rhythm game or any kind of replayable driving experience will leave you cold.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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