Makes you wonder how great the Sports Car game there are designing
will be.
All I can say is DAMN!
Begin Review -
Empire Interactive are better known, arguably, for their turn-based
campaign oriented strategy games and war sims. They decided to branch
out into the world of 3D and pretty well have been shoddy at it.
...Ford Racing release is just another example that they need to get
deeper pockets and hire better artists, programmers and designers.
They're hurting.
The graphics in this game may have been the cat's meow, oh say, 2
years ago but bit mapped graphics and pixellated images are all passe.
Dead. Gone. The t-shirt's off to the Sally Ann. Blobby environmental
objects, undefined backdrops and featureless features. Shadows are
off-centered and not indicative of lighting. Metal skins are poorly
done and only on the user's car, despite the fact that CPU car details
set to max. Heavy particles only means more blobs. For example, if end
up in the dirt, your dust cloud likes like some strapped on a paint
spray gun to your rear tires.
Sounds are as weak as two soup cans tied together by a string. The
only somewhat decent audio effects is the music..... This game
purports to support various 3D audio effects but on my surround sound
system, it was like listening to your next door neighbor humping his
wife or at least you'd like to think so.
I could not get this game for the life of me to recognize either my MS
Wheel or my Thrustmaster racing console. The only sure control was via
keyboard. Everything else was either way too twitchy and
over-responsive or as kludgy as driving blindfolded. But I can't tell
if that was the game or handling typical of a Ford vehicle. ;) The
game physics are somewhat questionable. A Ford F-150 with an empty bed
fish tailing at 100 around a hairpin will most likely flip and roll
instead of skidding sideways.
Anyways, there are many much better racing games out of there and this
one has no chance of displacing them. Hell, Need for Speed II still
outshines this product and that was released almost 4 years ago...oh
well, I am posting this as I know there are pack rats out there who
will get it despite my advice. And some of you may have a better
appreciation of this game than I. Or a greater tolerance for pain.
- James "Gunslinger" Wohlever
Techware Motorsports
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
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