I bought this (Sold Out label again) thinking it would be a nice little arcade-style racer.

Overview

It’s a racing game. It’s Nascar (I’m presuming that will mean a hell of a lot more to you Americans than it does for me!). You can play a full championship with several settings, or a single race.

First Impressions

I don’t know much about Nascar, but I do know it’s annoying when you have to wait up to several minutes to start qualifying, racing, practicing, or even a warm-up before you can actually do anything (even taking into account the accelerated time feature). You might be 80th out onto the track, and you just have to wait it out. Also it took several goes for the joystick set-up to work at all, and even then the analogue didn’t feel right. Then when I finally did get to go out onto the track, I skidded uncontrollably for no reason I could or even now can work out. Not a good start.

Interface

Apart from the aforementioned joystick problem, there’s nothing particularly wrong with the menu system – it’s pretty easy to use and understand. It does its job well enough without being particularly flashy.

Difficulty

When you skid uncontrollably for no reason whatsoever, it’s impossible to gauge the difficulty properly. On keys it’s no better. I don’t know if I have a buggy version, or maybe it’s not happy running under Windows XP, but nothing about this game encouraged me to keep trying till something worked.

Aesthetics

Ugh. The sound is okay, I guess, though the commentary is rather difficult to understand. But the graphics are awful (even on the highest detail levels for everything). I seem to remember Formula One Grand Prix on my creaky old Atari ST being much better than this (though that could be nostalgia!). But there’s absolutely no illusion of speed, and little in the way of car detail.

Will You Still Be Playing it in 6 Months’ Time?

Only if you’re a complete masochist.

Is it Worth the Money?

Even on budget there’s no way this is worth it. If you want a good budget racing game, go for Colin McRae Rally 2.

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Final Ratings

Graphics: - 34% - this would have looked outdated long before the 21st century kicked in…

Sound: - 48% - not absolutely terrible, but pretty low standard speech samples.

Playability: - 15% - do you enjoy going round in uncontrollable circles for no apparent reason and not being able to correctly configure your joystick no matter what you do? If so, read 100%.

Longevity: - 2% - leave it in the box.

Replay Value: - 2% - as above. Which is a shame, because with the various championship options, if the main game engine had been good, this would have had you playing for a long time.

Value For Money: - 0% - There’s really no reason whatsoever for you to waste your hard-earned cash on this.

Overall Rating: - 12% - Ugh.

Okay so maybe in 1999 the graphics looked good. And if I hadn’t had such problems with the joystick configuration maybe I’d have enjoyed it more. Looking at all the 5-star reviews from 1999/2000, I can only assume that this is the case. But I review as I find, and I’ll only be using this game CD as a novelty coaster.




Recommended: No