awoolcott's Full Review: Flag to Flag Cart Racing for Dreamcast
It's rather difficult to be totally objective in reviewing a game as old as Flag To Flag. After all, it's almost 2 years old, and has been on store shelves here since September of 1999 at the Dreamcast launch. Since that time, Flag To Flag obviously has been topped in graphics as well as gameplay numerous times over by DC games like Sega GT, Test Drive LeMans, and Daytona USA.
Thus, the merits of F2F have been overlapped, thus making the game inferior to today's racing efforts. That's not saying Flag To Flag is a bad game, which it isn't. It's actually quite fun, with lots of tracks, even more real drivers to choose from, and a simple to grasp Arcade mode. But the very dated graphics, bad computer AI, and generally easy difficulty (which is an oxymoron of course) really hurt long-term value. For 10 bucks (which is the price it's going for over at Amazon.com) it's well worth it, but it's not worth that much more.
There's only a pair of gameplay modes to pick from - Arcade and Championship. Arcade is simple to get into; all you do is pick one of 27 C.A.R.T (that's Championship Auto Racing Teams; not Can Adam Really Type) drivers, and one of 19 tracks, and you're off to the races. And that's about it. It's not very deep at all, like most "Arcade" modes are a lot of times. However for a quick racing fix, it's a good feature. And 2-player split-screen is here in Arcade as well - perfect for the mano a mano duels.
Most players will want to go into Championship mode for the real meat of Flag To Flag. Championship takes you through an entire C.A.R.T season, accumulating points for the FedEX season series. You'll race on all 19 tracks, from oval tracks like the Milwaukee Mile, to street tracks like Detroit and Portland, to full-on racing circuits like the Demon Seed itself, Laguna Seca.
Before you can enter Championship, you can pick from 3 difficulty levels, aptly named Easy, Medium, and Hard. Really, Sega should have named them "For Morons", "For Buffoons" and "For Those With A Room Temperature IQ." Why? Because this game is easy. It's harder finding a prostitute in Times Square than it is winning all the races handily on any of the challenge levels. The computer AI is really yucky and poor, and never really fights you for 1st place. You'll just blow by them. It's pretty sad when you can just hold down the accelerator on Nazareth Speedway, and never hit the brake or make any attempt to turn the car, yet STILL win the race. Even on the street tracks you can make a million mistakes and win handily. And they totally ruined the Corkscrew at Seca. If you've played Gran Turismo 2 or 3, you know the Corkscrew is something to fear, something that can totally ruin a race for whoever gets caught in it. In Flag To Flag, the Corkscrew is flat and hardly any effort is needed to get past it. Too bad. And while there is no damage, you can put other cars out of commission by knocking their rear spoiler out. I did it accidentally to the 1st place driver - next time I saw his name he was in last place. Cheap, but effective.
This ease of gameplay really hurts the replay, because you'll be able to smoke through Championship and win each and every race without putting an effort into it. I had more fun playing C.A.R.T World Series on PlayStation, because the game was much harder to beat. Maybe for those un-initiated in racing games might get a challenge, but experienced racing game fans will probably get bored fast.
If you're dedicated to Flag To Flag, you'll appreciate the customization options given you to tweak your car for max performance. Even if you'll never really have to fiddle around with it (due to how easy this game is), it still comes in handy if you want to get the fastest possible lap.
There's some control issues as well - it's rather clunky and unrealistic. Racing around at the top speeds will almost render turning to nil. Yes, cars are harder to handle at high speeds, but they still turn. If you don't turn the Analog stick hard enough, you'll still hit a wall even if you slow down. And whatever you do, don't accidentally run into the grass or sand - it'll stop your car completely. What's up with that?
However, all the faults can be overlooked at times, because at the heart of it, Flag To Flag is a pretty fun game, especially for fans of C.A.R.T racing, or even open-wheeled racing as a whole. A lot of the tracks have tricky corners, such as Cleveland's former runway-turned-racetrack's curvy first and last turns. The oval courses are kind of boring, but the street tracks are fun to race around on, even if it's really easy to win. And this game is fast - it feels fast, like any good racer should. They don’t excuse the faults, but it's a good coverup. Like most Sega games, it makes up for the faults by making it fun to play, as well as fast.
Visually, F2F is at its most dated. Perhaps in 1999 the graphics were nice, but today, they aren't much of anything. I'd say the Bleem! emulated Gran Turismo 2 is much better looking than Flag To Flag. At only 30 FPS, with very boring effects, and dull environments around the tracks, F2F fails miserably by 2001 standards. After being exposed to Gran Turismo 3 the last month, Flag To Flag looks 32-bit by comparison. Again, the gameplay covers up the graphical problems, because gameplay is infinitely more important than visuals. The good points include good track designs (outside of the lacking environments), nicely detailed cars, and cool effects after riding off the track. Hit the grass and your tires turn green - just race the track again for a bit and the grass will slowly wipe off the tires. Pretty cool stuff.
The audio is pure Sega racing - lots of cheesy rock music to race to. There's only a handful of it, and it repeats quite frequently. It's pretty tolerable thankfully, unlike the annoying music of Sega GT and even Daytona USA. As for the effects, the usual, pedestrian engine sounds and braking effects are here. Nothing special or memorable, just "there."
I give Flag To Flag 3 stars on one condition - it's only 10 bones. If it were 50 dollars, I'd never recommend this; while fun, it's just way too easy to blow through in a couple days. In a word or 2: rental material. But for 10 bucks, it's a pretty good buy, especially for those looking to get a hold of every Dreamcast launch game (*cough*me*cough*). It's not a terrible game, just very easy. Ramp the difficulty up and you'd have 4 stars, but the challenge level is pretty much nil. C.A.R.T fans might get more out of C.A.R.T Fury on PlayStation 2, but still fans of the league will still get a kick out of Flag To Flag.
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