krashlite2's Full Review: Star Wars: Episode I Racer for Windows
LucasArts is happy to promote yet another of its Star Wars offshoots in Star Wars EpisodeIV Racer. Want to test your reflexes in a high stakes inter-planetary competition? Well then, Racer is your game. This review covers the PC version of the game and is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than the N64 version thanks to its 3D accelerator card requirement.
I'm sure just about all of you have seen the movie, Star Wars: EpisodeIV. For those of you who may not have seen it, (yes, there are such people still occupying this planet) Anakin Skywalker a.k.a Darth Vader skillfully navigates a Pod Racer at speeds of over 600mph just a few feet above the ground. Now, this is your chance to step into the cockpit and experience the visual effects of racing against the galaxy's top contenders and holding your own. Whenever you finish in the top four in a race, you win money and this usually goes towards buying upgrades and repairs on your pod racer so that you can better compete in the next race.
Graphically, Racer is very impressive with unique races that not only demand quick reflexes and timing but also capture your imagination. There are eight skillfully crafted planets each composed of their own obstacles and it is a visually breathtaking sight to find yourself racing through the elements. The racers themselves are unique pieces of graphical art and they are coupled with realistic enough sounds for those booster overloads, nudges with opponents, brushes against walls and outright crashes.
A 3D accelerator card is required because of the intensity of the graphics and frame motion. For an analysis of sound, one needs only to remember that THX is yet another George Lucas company so this game was certainly not lacking in expertise in that category, and boy did it show. Not only were the background tunes interesting but the groans, shouts and glee evident in the different racers were very realistic and the owner of the parts shop, Watto, brought a smile to my face with every one of his wisecracks about pod racers.
If there is one element that has both a positive and negative spin, depending on what side of the coin you favor, it is the lack of skill and playing time that usually is needed for most racing games to conquer levels. In Star Wars racer, most people could race through the first eight tracks with hardly a practice round needed and this would compare unfavorably with a couple of other games that it competes with, most notably Wipeout 64. On the bright side though, this means that if you're not a hardcore gamer, you could still enjoy the experience of winning quite a few times before you get to the harder levels. On the other hand, if you ARE an experienced gamer, you might find the lack of challenges quite boring until you get to the last four or five levels.
There are three main modes of play, the Practice Level, Single Player Tournament and Multiplayer play. There are also three main levels of difficulty, Amateur, Semi-pro and Galactic. Control buttons are also very easy, and you can actually play and win using the keyboard on at least the first 10 levels. I highly recommend using a joystick though, for a more realistic piece of the action obviously.
On the minus side, I find it a sad state of affairs that this game is not capable of internet gameplay. Yes, it does have multiplayer LAN support for upto eight players but how many people actually have LAN. That was certainly a huge lack of foresight from the makers. Replay value once you have finished the game is not great since you just have to start over, but most racing games do not have the handicap of being outright boring once you've finished everything, unlike action/adventure or role playing games, so its not so bad. Star Wars Racer is also somewhat outdated considering it was out in 1999, but on the bright side, you can pick one up for about $15 these days, definitely a worthy investment in Star Wars memorabilia if nothing else.
Overall if you like the Star Wars movies, you will love this game. What other game will allow you to share in Anakin's exclamations of glee when he wins? Yes there's no Ben Hur for him to race against but there is the evil Sebulba whose sole credit is when he Jar Jar Binks up. If you have plenty of time to kill over the holidays like I do, check out the Star Wars Racer but be warned, if you are a Star Wars fanatic, you are very likely to get addicted. I wish someone had told me that earlier.
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