Numerous power-ups are available to enhance the racing experience, with these bonus items providing temporary speed, attack, and defense boosts. You encounter green particle fields that increase the speed of your tripods, as well as yellow particle fields that power your “attach-magnet,” allowing you to climb tunnel walls to obtain valuable items. In addition, pink pyramids hover over the tracks, and these provide homing missiles or lasers to attack other tripods, or mines or shields to defend against other vehicles’ attacks. While the pick-ups are definitely not the central component of the racing experience, and you can win without use of the pink pyramids, they certainly do spice it up considerably. When you are in the lead, for example, and do not have other vehicles to pass, you need to be constantly sliding to the part of the track that contains the particle fields in order to protect your position.

There are not many options in Killer Loop. For example, there are but three perspectives available for viewing the racing, and I find the default the best anyway. Regarding competition modes, you may race against computer-controlled opponents in a series of three-lap championship races, against the clock in a time trial, or in multiplayer competition against up to eight people over a LAN or using a TCP/IP connection. If you are able to finish in first place on every track in all the leagues, you may race in a special racing mode that moves 25 percent faster. This ultra-fast mode, which is not available in most other offerings, is the most riveting racing I have ever encountered. I do not find the absence of extra options to be much of a deficiency because it is clear that all the considerable originality of the designers went into creating a racing experience that is in a class all by itself.

Thus, a central part of the design philosophy of Killer Loop is that it does not contaminate the pure racing experience with sidelights that dilute the gameplay. There is no money accumulation, upgrade acquisition, or tuning refinement available. There is no distracting “career” mode where you may attract sponsors, and no police chase mode. There are no pit stops, oil changes, gas fill ups, or tire rotations. There is no extraneous traffic and no bizarre weather changes. It is an exercise in pure speed, handling, and–as is supposed to be the case with arcade racers–the reflexes of the driver.

So what are the rewards for successful racing in Killer Loop? You get access to better and more powerful tripods and more intriguing tracks (half of which are initially unavailable) over time. While normally I find the “locked-option” syndrome to be quite objectionable, the manner in which you get access to additional classes of tripods and tracks makes considerable sense in terms of the goals and structure of the gameplay. Although there are no levels of difficulty, the tracks become more challenging as you proceed to the newly unlocked ones. What keeps you coming back for more? The attractiveness, length, challenge, and multi-path nature of the tracks, which dramatically enhance the replay value; the ease of driving the vehicles; and the sheer adrenaline rush of the most stupendous close-quarters racing I have experienced in a long time.