MeteorTech Sparkworks
Storm the Albatross
Angel•Devil (Air Ride)

As usual, something bad happens to the area to make the Babylon counterpart. In the case of MeteorTech Premises, the factory's robots somehow activate on their own and are flying around the place, shutting down the factory's power and forcing it to rely on emergency lights. The result is a whole new course, MeteorTech Sparkworks. If you're playing this place, you'd better be sure to get the brightness and contrast down properly on your TV, because this entire course is in the dark and it's obviously important to be able to see where you're going.

This is probably the stage that changes the least between the Heroes and Babylon versions, geographically speaking, but the way you go about this is completely different. The most obvious hazard is the darkness. You're essentially relying on whatever little power the factory has left to light your way, so you'd better take cues well from the dim lights dotting the place that give you a vague idea of where to go. The other hazard consists of the robots on the loose--they do hurt you if you touch them, and their flight patterns can be unpredictable at first. You could see that I got hit by one on the second lap.

The character I used for this one is Storm the Albatross. He represents the muscle behind the Babylon Rogues, a trio of avian thieves who are all very good at Extreme Gear Racing. He kind of looks like Batou from Ghost in the Shell. He's not too bright, though he does always seem to find a way out of every predicament he's in.

He's at his best punching stuff out of the way, but here, I put him on an Air Ride gear so that he can fly like any good seabird should do. (Except penguins.) This vehicle is the Angel•Devil, whose nearly divine imbalance makes it the bane of any time trialer who wants to use anything else. No vehicle accelerates faster than this one or makes better use of Gravity Dives, and it's pretty ncie in every other stat. It has only one Gear Change, which is what gives it the leading edge:
50 Rings: Angel / Devil
Once you hit 50 Rings, the Gear Change icon on the upper-right will start spinning between the Angel (yellow) and the Devil (purple). Whichever one is shown to you when you do the Gear Change is what the Angel•Devil will turn into. The Angel gives superior items from Monitors; the Devil gives inferior items. I should've changed it to the Devil, since you hardly ever see that on YouTube. It's a quirky gear. This game is full of them. From here on out, you'll be seeing strange gear like this--the normal stuff is done and over with.

Nevertheless, you can see the amazing usability of the Angel•Devil in how ridiculously far behind the computer players become.

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