Rage Racer

  In reviewing this game, I feel it fair to warn you that I have a bias against the ridge/rage racer series of games. It's not that I don't think they are good games, because I do think they are good. It's more of a matter of style I guess. Ridge, and now Rage (Racer)  just aren't my "cup of tea" so to speak.

Now, with that said, I will try to be as honest with this review as I can. I just felt it best to mention my feelings, because I don't want to give off mis-leading opinions of this game.

There are a total of 4 courses in Rage Racer. Or rather, one course, with multiple sections involved. One of the 4 is an oval track, that may or may not be part of the regular course. Here is my first strike against this game. There just isn't enough tracks to race on. Sure, the tracks are long, and well designed, but there isn't quite enough to keep me interested. By using the same course, the designers re-use much of the scenery, and a part of the actual course. You race again, and again on what begins to feel like the same exact course. This is fun for the first couple dozen laps, but after that it begins to get boring.

The graphics are nicely done overall, and in a few places they are absolutely breathtaking. The waterfall scene will simply amaze you. The cars look nice, and the courses all look good. Actually, it's very apparent that alot of time and thought went into the overall look of the game. I do have a complaint though. I won't count this as a strike against it, but it runs in a low resolution mode. It's not too apparent at first, but play this after playing a game such as "Test Drive 5" and the difference is very noticable. It seems to me if "Pitbull Syndicate" (Developers of TD5) can get their game to run wonderfully in hi-res, Namco should be able to do so too. Not a big complaint, but yet it is enough to make me consider a little lesser quality then some of the other racers available.

Namco was never real big on licensed cars, and this is no different. You will not find all your favorite rides here. You will find some pretty cool Namco originals, and that's not entirely bad. An arcade racer can be just as fun as a racing simulator as long as it is done right. Here, it was done average. There are 13 cars to purchase, and these can be upgraded too. Not alot of cars, but a fairly decent amount. What I didn't like about it was that there was far too few to select from the get go. You can purchase more, or upgrades as you win races, but this is a very slow tedious process. Sometimes, you will race again and again, to purchase a new car only to find it is just slightly better then your previous ride. The game just takes far too long to get moving, and this was it's second strike.

To me the final strike is the way the cars handle. I want to be fair, because I know alot of players love the Namco control, but to me it sucks. The cars don't feel real to me. The handling traits are not as pronounced as in a game like the much under-rated "Test Drive 5". Drifting is difficult too. The cars take turns wonderfully when properly using the drifting technique around a corner, but this is hard to achieve on a regular basis. Most of the time, I opted to use the other less effective cornering technique called "grip driving". It was much less error prone.

There are a few neet touches that I really liked though. One was the ability to completely customize your car using your own logo, and colors.  This is very cool, and I'd like to see it incorporated into more racing games. I also liked the rear view mirror, and the fantastic speeds the game reaches once you have the right cars.

So, in the end, the game comes off as only slightly above average. I admit, it is a very solid racer, but it just doesn't have anything to push it over the top. Personally I believe Test Drive 4/5, Need for speed III, and Grand Turismo, are far better racers.  With NFS 4, and Grand Turismo II just around the corner, there's not much reason to purchase this game unless you are really into the Namco style of racing. I know there are lots of you, I just am not.
 

RATINGS
GRAPHICS 79%
SOUND 81%
GAMEPLAY 78%
ORIGINALITY 70%
REPLAY VALUE 82%
OVERALL 78%