The track design in the Speed Racer game is very cool
That's one ugly kid...
The future of racing is, umm, bright
This car looks like Luke Skywalker's X-34 Landspeeder
This morning I awoke to an aging man of oriental descent
doing star jumps on my front lawn.
Now that's not what shocked me. The fact that he was wearing lipstick kind of freaked me out...
Freaky old men aside, I was starving and needed a
feed big-time, so I jumped in to my T-180 race car which, for those of
you who don't know, is the vehicle of choice used in the World Racing
League. Yep, the world of Speed Racer.
How did I get this majik car? I've got connections that go all the way to the
top.
As I sped to the pie shop, mastering the controls
of the T-180 was a tricky feat as this wasn't any normal race
car.
In addition to reaching speeds in excess
of 400 miles per hour [that's
about 644km/h - Ed] this 4-wheeler also has jump jacks
that allow it to boost into the air and perform barrel rolls and flips to avoid other racers and sometimes traffic jams.
The T-180 can also slide, a trick accomplished
by it's four independently rotating wheels, which allow the racecar to
continue forward on a track in spite of whatever direction it may be
facing.
On my way home after a tasty shepherd's pie,
another T-180 pulled up along side me (it was that freaky Asian guy
again) and I don't think he was impressed about me laughing at him
earlier, despite his trespassing on my private property.
I could sense his Car-fu was strong, common in the
World Racing League. Car-Fu is the artful maneuvering and fighting of
opponents and is also a major part of the Speed Racer
videogame.
As the lights turned green down past the pie shop,
we both punched the gas on our quest of hitting 400mph: it was a
furious battle as we Boost Bashed, Tail tossed, 180-degree spun, round
housed and torpedoed our way back to chez Williams.
In addition to performing these Car-Fu moves, the
'Backwards' bonus is were you hit a car with rear end of your T-180 and
double the damage you do to the opponent, and is an ultra sweet way to
gaining the edge on the track as I discovered.
There are many different driving strategies that
you can take advantage of in the world of Speed Racer. Here are
just a few:
Boost and Zone: By
avoiding touching the sides of the track you will gain Boost Power
(displayed by a blue bar on your HUD).
Performing Car-Fu moves also fills your Boost bar,
which gives you a sudden burst of acceleration.
And if you save up three Boosts and use them all
at once, you enter "The Zone", allowing you to move at
super-fast speeds for a short period of time.
Slip Streaming: When
driving close behind other race cars, you get a Speed Bonus from their
Slipstream, in turn giving you enough speed to pass them quickly.
But be careful when performing this technique on
rivals as they may attack you if you get too close.
Alliances And Rivalries:
In Championship races you can make an alliance with certain drivers
allowing you to gain an advantage on the track, such as no Car-fu-ing
each other and freely Slipstreaming one another.
However choose wisely, because every driver has a
rival who is hell bent on ending your day at the track (in my case that
freaky old guy with the lipstick).
Alliances can also be broken if you Car-Fu your
allies, at which time you get a points and Boost penalty. Continue the
on-track betrayal by destroying an ally and the alliance is
cancelled.
Priced at less than $30 (which now translates to
about $1.40 in U.S. currency...) Speed Racer isn't the most complicated
of games, but for the price it's not bad value and comes with three
main modes:
Single Race Time Trial Championship
Championship
mode is the main part of the game and has three initial classes.
As you
progress through the game each class allows a higher top speed for
racers and an increased number of opponents on the track: Class 1 being
the fastest and class 3 being the slowest.
The gameplay is arcadey but actually a lot of fun and the difficulty
level isn't too high, making it ideal for newbs or even gramps if
he's
new to videogaming.
The wacky Car-Fu system adds an extra dimension to
the enjoyable racing and there's a list of up to 25
racers in total, and the only thing this game really lacks is longevity.
Seasoned gamers will probably blast through it in a couple of sessions.
I don't think Speed Racer The Videogame captures
the spirit and visual vibrancy of the Speed Racer film,
however the dramatically rising, falling, winding and corkscrewing tracks help lend a sense of
chaos to the racing and reminds me of games like the WipeOut and F-Zero games.
That's
one of the best things about this game, the track design, which is
somewhat psychedelic with lots of insane direction changes and paths
that take you across contrasting landscapes, from cities to oceans.
If this was a full priced $100 game it's value
would be questionable as there aren't many game modes, but when it's priced at $29.95 it's not a bad
deal at all.
Boost and Zone
