Lets see if I can do a competent review of this game. Overall it's a
great game. It's sort of like an arcade racer wrapped around a very
realistic driving model. It looks like arcade but drives like a sim.
The main interface is simple. As is the garage and paint shop. A few
clicks is all it takes to get into the action. The garage isnt quite as
complex as other sims I've seen, but still offers plenty of adjustments.
There's aerodymanics, shock and spring settings, camber, toe, gear ratios,
final drives and more. The only thing it might lack for the serious sim
racer (which I am not) is individual wheel adjustments. You can only adjust
front and rear settings. I suppose for the oval tracks you might want to
adjust all four wheels different, but its fine for me. All of the
adjustments are broken into catagories and accesible by tabs on one page. A
rather neat feature is this window that shows in real time how the
adjustments you're making are going to affect your car. Take away front
spoiler and it shows that what you are doing is going add 'push' to your
car. From the garage, you can instantly go to the track to test your
adjustments.
The paint kit is pretty impressive. For the artists, it has a nice free
hand section and for the not-so artistic it has 20 or so templates where you
can change the colors. Decals and numbers are also available to add to your
car.
The career mode is just great. There are four classes to race in. You
start in amatuer and work your way up by winning the point championship at
the end of each season. Along the way you earn money (the better you finish
the better the purse) and can put that money toward upgrades. The upgrades
are as simple and cheap as a performance muffler up to ported cyllinder
heads and fuel injection systems. The class you're racing in determines what
upgrades are available. (Tip for begginers: go for the tires first) You dont
have to win every race to advance to the next class, you just have to win
the points race (again the better you finish the more points you get). It
took me four seasons to gradutate out of the amatuers and eight seasons I
think to make it to the pro class.
There are (I think) eight tracks all of which can be ran backwards for 16
total. Two tracks are ovals the rest are road courses. The terrain for the
road courses range from fertile green to parched desert. They are slighty
reminescent (sp?) of Need for Speed tracks. No walls though, you can drive
anywhere on or off the tracks. Some are wide and fast, others tight and
narrow with lots of elevation changes. For me each track is a challenge and
requires a good line and proper car setup to be able drive fast.
Graphically the game is quite good. I wouldnt say absolutely stunning but
very good. The sounds are pretty decent and useful when determining if
you're pushing your car close to or over the 'edge'.
Physics! This is where the game shines. They are simply fantastic. I've
never driven a Viper (or any car at 180mph+) but it seems right on. You can
get loose and save it and you can get loose and lose it. With precise
throttle and steering you can even use it to your advantage. It's quite
incredible. Watching replays of your car is fun and informative. You can see
the front end dip when you shift and the chassis roll in high speed corners.
Outstanding!
AI... Im still not sure what to think of this yet. The AI drivers are fast
and drive good lines. I've lost more than one race though due to their
aggresiveness. They do crash and do so realistically and on occassion I've
seen them react to me. One example is, I had one guy on my ass for almost
two laps. It made me quite nervous, I was afraid he would take me out. Well,
one corner I got a little wide and he stuck his nose down underneath me.
"Its all over" I thought, he's gonna spin me. It was a right hand corner and
he was on my inside and a bit behind me. I held my line and since I had his
'exit' covered he actually had to get out of the gas to avoid drifting up
into me and lost his momentum and fell quite a ways back because of it.
Other times though I swear they drive like I'm not even there and just
hammer into me. I've learned though that alot of crashes are your own fault
by not driving a smooth fast line. I suppose they dont have time to react to
your poor driving and a crash is the result. Anyway the AI at first seems
lacking but the more I watch them the more intelligent they seem.
Hmm... did I leave anything out? Multiplayer I've not tried yet so I cant
comment on that. I'll go on to my beefs with the game which arent many and
pretty petty. Oh one other thing I forgot, there's a clutch! I've never seen
a clutch in a driving game before. It very hard since I dont have a third
pedal or an easy to reach button on my T2 wheel. I tried but much like when
I first tried a manual shift so many years ago its very tricky.
Ok, first complaint is after driving in career mode and building up my
Viper to the monster it is now, going back to a 'quick' race and a stock
Viper is a drag. I'm curious how multiplayer works in this regard. I can see
how in multiplayer you'd probably want everyone on the same playing field as
far as their car goes though. Next is the shadows on some of the courses.
They are just painted onto the road it seems. A fantastic example of good
shadows is the SBK Superbike demo. Now those are shadows! MGI, check out
that demo and see how they're done. My last complaint is the lack of a
'sense of speed'. It just doesnt seem quite right to me. There's one track
in particular that has a series of very tight S's. The first time I went
through them I felt like I was doing 15mph, I looked at my spedo and it said
65! It certainly didnt look like I was doing 65.
Anyway, there's my thoughts on the game. I give it a 9 outa 10. Great!
Fantastic! Love it! Thanks MGI! Sierra: you're lucky you have these guys
writing for you.
-Cota
Disclaimer: Im not an english teacher and I didnt check grammar, spelling,
or punctuation!