Racing Evoluzione Review

Platform X-Box
Dev Co: Milestone
Publisher: Atari
Release (UK): 01 Feb 2003
Review code: Pal / Europe
Wide screen mode: Yes
S/Sound : Dolby Digital
60Hz: No
Online content: No

Let’s get this straight first. RE has perhaps the most amazing looking tracks and backgrounds of any racer. Not the most realistic, but the prettiest. Ever. Full stop. This is one the most stunning games that this reviewer has ever laid eyes on. Of course this doesn’t make it the best game ever, but it’s without a doubt the most outstanding aspect of this game and certainly worth a mention.

RE is a bit of a gaming experiment. Instead of following the common path of “win race, win money, buy upgrade or new car”, RE sets you up as the new owner of a small car workshop, struggling to achieve design perfection and gaming glory by becoming the best damn car firm ever. In practise things don’t quite turn out this way, but it’s certainly a worthy effort from the developers previously responsible for the best arcade racers on the PC, the Screamer series.

Things start off fairly slowly. You’ve just inherited a small workshop and your friend the mechanic (who’s scoping the place out with you) finds some blueprints for some original design cars. One’s suited for racetracks, one’s suited for street and the other’s an all-rounder. He asks you what sort of vehicle you want to build and “six months later” (as the game’s narrator succinctly puts it) you’ve got a nice little roadster to start playing with.

The heritage of the game’s designers shows through at this stage. Instead of being offered a detailed setup screen, you are offered a token look at your car and the ability to switch between “Drift and Normal” setups. This obviously does not bode well for any sim fans out there. Further into the game you will be given the ability to change gear sets and down force, but it has to be said that the choices available remain pitifully lacking, giving the driver only three steps in each setup choice.

The first batch of races seem so slow it’s almost painful. There’s no decent rate of acceleration, the suspension’s squishy, the car doesn’t so much turn corners as it does drag round them. Even the top speed’s not impressive, as you’ll be lucky to break 100MPH on the straights. However, everyone you’re racing against is in the same class and it’s not too long before you start raking in some wins.

Wins equal sales in this game. As you are representing your own firm, winning increases your profile and therefore people start showing interest in (and buying) your vehicles. In practice this works out as a thinly disguised attempt at hiding the points aspect of a racer, but it certainly helps inject a feeling of variance into a genre which runs the danger of “more of the same”. As you gain more sales, the size of your workshop increases until you and your newly hired staff are running a fully fledged factory with separate R&D departments.

Earn a pre-set number of sales and your mechanic friend (or team of mechanics) converts your car from “Amateur” to “Semi-Pro”. The only discernable difference with the car at this level is a small amount of livery on the vehicle and the ability to change the gearset. A new set of tracks now opens up and things start getting a little faster. Get up to Pro and you’ll have better handling, more power and more tracks and onward to Sportcar. Then do the same to progress upward for Supercar and Dreamcar.

It’s at the Supercar level that you realise just how much the handling of your cars has changed. It no longer feels like you’re racing with some kind of clapped out banger, instead these cars feel much more tuned. The suspension is solid, the handling is tight and the acceleration/top speeds have shot right up. At this level the game starts to feel less like an arcade racer. The cars can be spun out if approaching a corner too fast or if accelerating too hard and you become much more aware of the “peaks and valleys” of the tracks.

This brings me neatly onto the tracks. There’s a nice range of environments, ranging from cities to mountains via full-on closed-circuit racetracks. RE features approximately 60 tracks. As with a lot of games from this genre, most of these tracks are extensions of each other. In the case of the Alpine tracks, at one point they all merge into one fantastic mega-twisty eight-mile long trek through country.

Each and every track is a breathtaking exercise in design, with courses being well laid out not just in terms of providing a challenging race, but revealing more and more intricate trackside detail at every turn. There is not one track in this game that disappoints in terms of eye candy. Translucent glass skyscrapers, Buddhist temples, lakes, woodland and more are all rendered with amazing flare and the game runs smoothly with it, too. The tracks also feature nice animated touches “round the edges” and you’ll find yourself catching glimpses of balloons being released, aeroplanes flying in the distance or traffic moving along on the sections of motorways that you’re not racing on. To even further credit the designers, nothing on the tracks distracts from the racing experience.

The car models, sadly, do not feature the same attention to detail. The blurb on the box declares that numerous real-life manufacturers appear in this game, but it has to be said that it’s hard to notice. When games like Sega GT 2002, Project Gotham Racing and Gran Turismo 3 have so accurately modelled and represented real-life cars, it seems a shame to come across a game that doesn’t utilise the licenses effectively. True, the game features Jaguars and Merc’s and many others, but frankly it’s difficult to even tell at a lot of times. When racing in the bulk of the game you’re racing your own miscellaneous design and when racing in Arcade mode the cars don’t seem to have much variance between them in terms of performance. Neither are the cars particularly well modelled, having a bit of a bland look about them. The damage model is nothing more than a slight change in textures when you hit something (or someone) and makes absolutely no difference to gameplay, as it has no detrimental effect on performance.

The sound, unfortunately, is as lacklustre as the car models. The engine sounds are bassy and have a good level of “grunt”, but they’re so indistinct and muffled that you can’t even tell where to change gear; meaning automatic gears are almost essential. The music, sadly, sucks too consisting mainly of racing game pap-pop. Once again, this comes as a bit of a shame in days where half-decent indie-bands are falling over themselves for the chance to be featured in a game soundtrack. The music aspect would be slightly less disappointing due to the chance to use your own choice of soundtrack from your hard disk, but the game only repeats one track per race. No matter how much you like Tatu (or whoever your fave band is), hearing the same “hit” over and over again during each race is sure to grate.

Perhaps the very worst (or best) thing about this game is the Artificial Intelligence. This game unfortunately epitomises “rubber band racing”. Being rewarded for holding a perfect racing line is not going to happen in RE. Instead, you are given a subtle boost if you fall behind and the computer cars are allowed to catch up if you race too far ahead. I’m in two minds about this type of racing. Whilst in no way does this simulate any kind of real-life racing, it does make a videogame (of which RE is a self-proclaimed one) very entertaining. Races are always close and the “head-to-head” nature always provides a reliable level of excitement.

Bad points considered, this reviewer has thoroughly enjoyed playing RE. As any kind of simulation it can’t even be put anywhere near the Toca’s, Colin McRae 3’s or F1 games of this world, but as a through and through arcade racer that tries something a little different it can be relied upon wholeheartedly to provide a cheap thrill. It’s not very often that I come across a racing game that has so much of a “one more race” feel to it, but all too often I found myself turning it on for a quick 30 minutes and turning it off four or five hours later.

It’s a shame that the game didn’t develop more on its theme of being a car designer and manufacturer. It seems criminal that someone qualified to make and race his own cars can’t even choose between different tyres, especially given the scope of customisation you’re allowed in so many other racers. Still, one hopes that Milestone have been inspired to expand on the innovations made herein and go on to produce something a bit bigger and less arcadey, with a little more scope for development within.

OVERALL – 8.0