As the Xbox 360's lifecycle chugs along, Xbox Live Arcade keeps getting bigger, which means growing pains will follow. Some attempts to widen the existing library of XBLA games aren't always hits, and you would be surprised if you stopped and thought about how many different game experiences are needed to fill the gaps in terms of quality. GripShift is another game in a long line of attempts at diversity for XBLA, but as a racing title, does it deliver on the grounds of speed it needs to secure a substantial enough offering for distinction?

Thoroughly justified for obvious reasons in genre, the game lacks any form of voiced narrative or scripted story. I write that with unbelievable relief in the fact that more often than not on Live Arcade, I have found a forced mechanism present to drive players through the experience with a poorly executed and unneeded story, as to justify, say, making a rabbit jump on a pogo stick. If the rabbit wants to, and the player is having fun, why give it reason? In this way, GripShift is grounded on the simple premise that it is a racing game, offering only straight-up challenge courses and a race mode, and doesn't convolute the gameplay with anything more than variety in both fields.

The racing schemes offered vary from single, time challenge and circuit mode, giving what any racing fan would come to expect as a basic necessity. Another mode ready for play is the same as a single race, with the addition of stars present for collection to finish in good order. They all range in speed and difficulties, as to ease the player into the subtle mechanics. The challenge mode is the rather vast alternative to the race mode, which challenges the player to master any one track with the promise of gold, silver or bronze if certain requirements are met. The tracks differ in the sense that a more free-form approach is given, and the player may choose to knock back any number of the goals present, always finding newer ways to succeed and eventually, to achieve gold medals across the board.

A multiplayer mode lengthens the list of inclusions with a race and battle mode. You have the option to play with up to four people, and the races — as much as they deliver a great sense of competition among players — don't deliver the same kind of entertaining punch yielded when you get a room full of buddies and go at it in the death-match mode. The power-ups are numerous, all with their respective counterbalances and application for high-flying explosives. Shields, rockets and speed boosts all make for a nice combination of hectic rivalries to be created and renewed, and the instant respawn ability makes certain the action never dies down.

It's pretty straightforward stuff for a racing game, all in all. It's important to note that the game should be classified under more a platforming/racing genre, as a large portion of the games diversity stems from the different ways to explore the new heights that can be gained, usually from the nitro boosts available and the encouragement of aerial acrobatics found within any typical GripShift session.

The game's feel is considerably floaty to add to the sensation of going full speed and hitting the jump just right to soar through the air. This instills an even greater feeling of satisfaction due in part to either the new shortcut learned or the sense of bravado from showing off in multiplayer as you idle around the track and wait for the perfect moment to strike. The control given in the air is just as accessible as any of the movement on the ground; you may boost, turn and brake to give you all the options necessary to fully explore the airspace. The end result is one of generous movement and terrific range inside any one map, and never taken for granted or sacrificed for difficulty or track design.

As far as visuals go, each level is set on a standard of being a fixed racing track suspended high above the surface of the Earth, which instills a sense of vertigo and, ultimately, adds to the sense of weightlessness the game centers around. The tracks are usually filled with background pieces such as penguins, volcanoes or dinosaurs to perhaps try to fill the void of nothingness in the overwhelming airspace. The only significant pieces are the ramps, portals and windpipes to give you lift, or the magnets, crushers and electro fences which prevent you from reaching those heights. Everything else -- the road, for instance -- is pretty standard. They're roads, after all. They needn't be anything more.

As much as I enjoyed the visuals of the obstacles and tracks, the only important part of the entire aesthetic that really needed to succeed, the audio, didn't fare nearly as well. The bizarre trend of adding hip-hop/rap music to games that do not require them continues with GripShift, and thus it perhaps misses the mark for those who would enjoy any other non-mismatched genre of music instead of what the game provides.

It's bad enough that some kind of funky hard-edged rap track is playing while I boost my little purple car through an ice land filled with penguins, but then that music has to be bad as well — "insult to injury," I say. The ability for the 360 to play custom soundtracks comes in quite handy here, though that only works for the music. The small quips from the characters are just as awkward and out of place and were turned off to better enjoy the game on a whole. Is the audio a game ruining experience? Of course not, but the only word that comes to mind is "unfortunate."

The game does not provide a drifting system similar to those I have grown accustomed to with racing games, but an abundant nitro system is offered instead. This serves the game better, considering the heavily jumping-centric nature of the game mechanics. The choice of cars is odd, as there are only three available from the start and only three to unlock, which seems like an underwhelming number of choices. The game tries to counterbalance this with an illusion of customization, but it fails overall to deliver on this aspect aesthetically and functionally, as most of the options are goofy at best and do nothing to enhance the performance of your car at all, with no real upgrade system to be found.

The game is set around a credits system, though, and it is extensive to say the least — very extensive. From the races to the challenges and everything in between, there are over 5,000 credits to earn, with more than 100 challenge levels and races making up the greatest and frequently missed quality in racing titles (and games in general) — longevity and replayability. This game possesses both in large amounts.

My only real complaint I found throughout the entire game was the issue of difficulty. The game has plenty, which is not the complaint. Rather, the way they deal with distributing the difficulty is. There have been a number of examples in the history of racing games equate speed with difficulty and to increase speeds as the game progresses; this is taken as the norm. Though GripShift does such a better job of providing entertainment on the harder (faster) levels, when I go back to the easier (slower) tracks, I question why they even chose to sacrifice fun gameplay while toning the difficulty down. The game could have provided any number of other tweaks to adjust difficulty, but to abbreviate the single most defining quality of the game's fun — high speed — to divide the tiers of difficulty, with per-tier unique tracks, seems to be downright foolish. Maybe I'm being particular about an age-old rule about racing games in general for a stupid reason, but it stuck out in my mind this time around as a definite negative — consider the obvious reduction in flight distances on the lower difficulties alone.

GripShift was definitely a game I had to look at twice. The first impression the game left on me was the one I'd gotten from the earlier, easier levels, which seemed wanting compared to what the game was trying to deliver. Once I reached the later portions of the game, with a seemingly disgusting number of tracks still left to race, I became so engaged in the low-gravity situations surrounded by great speeds that I appreciated the game more because it was delivering on all the levels it was promising earlier on but didn't get high enough in the miles per hour to attain. The multiplayer held up in the same way, and I was incredibly surprised how much fun the game was with just a few friends, as compared to what a drag it seemed to be with only a single opponent. The racing/platforming game GripShift sets itself out to succeed on these principles. Luckily, the game's entertainment value draws strongly from its longevity, and that is an impressively unique quality I wish more games based themselves upon.