ONRUSH is an arcade racing game published by Codemasters and developed by Codemasters Evo, a studio made up of developers from the defunct Evolution Studios who worked on the MotorStorm games. It was released on June 5th, 2018.
This is not your typical racing game. Sure, it takes place on a circuit, but there're no start/finish lines or lap times, and emphasis is instead placed on high-octane vehicular combat. Gameplay revolves around garnering and guzzling as much boost as possible while brawling with your opponents to make sure that they can't do the same. There are eight vehicles to play as, each with their own different capabilities.
There are four different gamemodes to play, and all of them except for Switch depend on one team getting a predetermined number of points to win:
- Overdrive: The simplest mode. Using boost adds to your team's score meter, and the first team to bring their score meter to a certain number gets a point.
- Countdown: Each team has a timer that keeps ticking down, but driving through gates will add seconds to the clock. The first team to have their timer reach zero concedes a point to the other team.
- Switch: Each player has three lives. When they crash out, they switch to the heavier vehicle class after what they're currently driving. Last team not driving all Titans and/or Enforcers wins.
- Lockdown: There's a Zone moving ahead of the pack, which players must remain inside of to score for their team. So long as more of one team's players are within the zone than the other team, said team will eventually score one point.
Onrush contains examples of the following tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: A few tracks are named like this: Big Dune Beach, Freightyard Forest, Red Rock Refinery and Sanctuary Shore.
- Anti-Frustration Features: So you're playing Switch and your RUSH gauge is almost full, only for you to crash out! Are you really gonna have to work all the way back up from a partially-full tank in your new vehicle? Nope! When respawning in a Switch game, your new vehicle's RUSH gauge is set to whatever your previous vehicle was at.
- Barrier Warrior: The Titan generates shields around nearby allies to protect them from heavy impacts, and its RUSH generates a chain of small walls behind it for opponents to crash into.
- Death from Above: It's possible to take somebody down by landing on top of them, something that even an Outlaw can do to a Titan. The Charger's passive ability encourages this, as it curves slightly toward groundborne enemy vehicles while landing from a big jump.
- Disproportionate Retribution: One of the audio clip quotes for crashing someone out says "They looked at me funny."
- Eternal Engine: The Red Rock Refinery course takes place in and around a sprawling oil refinery. However, none of the dangerous equipment therein appears to be operational.
- The Goomba: The roads are packed with Fodder Vehicles, whose only function is to supply boost to players who crash into them.
- Interface Screw: There are two abilities that temporarily blind opponents, with different appearances for both:
- The Blade's Tombstones, little pickups left behind whenever they get wrecked, briefly blind enemies who pass through them, as though they saw all light as being five times brighter for a few seconds.
- The Enforcer's RUSH leaves a blinding trail that screws up the vision of any enemies passing through them, as though seeing through a heavily smudged window.
- Limit Break: Each vehicle comes with a RUSH ability that is charged up by using the boost, and every match starts with the gauge one-fifth full. When activated, it gives you a very powerful boost for a short amount of time, along with a distinct gimmick for each class. As a rule of thumb, the lighter the vehicle class, the more offense-oriented its ability is.
- Blade: Leaves a damaging trail of fire behind you.
- Outlaw: Drains the boost gauges of all nearby opponents while also preventing them from using it.
- Vortex: Leaves a backwash of turbulent air behind you, which throws off the handling of opponents following behind.
- Charger: Has a larger RUSH effect in general, the better with which to plow through enemies.
- Interceptor: Your RUSH gauge is fully refilled with each vehicle you crash out, letting your RUSH potentially last much longer. However, it burns RUSH energy at a faster rate.
- Dynamo: Replenishes the boost gauges of all nearby allies.
- Titan: Leaves a trail of small walls for opponents to crash into.
- Enforcer: Blinds any opponents following behind.
- Mana Burn: The Outlaw's RUSH saps boost from nearby enemy vehicles.
- Power Nullifier: Bumping into opponent vehicles with the Enforcer briefly disables their boost, and the Outlaw's RUSH does the same to everyone nearby, in addition to draining their boost gauges.
- Shockwave Stomp: The Outlaw's passive Slam ability produces a shockwave upon landing from great heights, which destabilizes nearby foes.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Snowbound episode in the campaign mode sends a snowstorm through the game's courses, which makes it harder to handle for everybody.
