R:Racing Review

Platform: PS2, Cube, Xbox
Dev Co: Namco
Publisher: EA
Release (UK): April 2004
Review code: Pal / Europe
Wide screen mode: Yes
S/Sound : Yes
60Hz: No
Online content: No

Let’s be clear about something before I begin proper. I am encouraging some, but not all of you to go and buy this game. That’s the preamble qualifier. Now let’s see why I’ve elected to insert a qualifier like that before writing the review…

It has become patently obvious that the major online press and for UK Print press I read, that the point of a review is to rip a game apart and find out all those little things that annoy the reviewer, which can be found in better/bigger style or execution in a similar game. It seems to me that they’re like film critics. But a film critic opinion means little to most folks and we all know that. My earlier reviews tended to oppose this ‘deride and conquer’ view and provide you with some entertainment with interesting anomalies and the like (I’m not suggesting I ever achieved this goal, but that was the intention).

Today I have changed my goal posts further. I am going to tell you everything that is good and great about R:Racing and what might make it rewarding for you….you can then decide if you’ll get any fun out of it. I will include only negative comments where deeply necessary. Please don’t mistake this for a sales pitch. I am hoping it will be a refreshing change in a review. Let us know what you think. That said, let’s roll out the review.

A racing game from Namco is always worth a look in this reviewer’s opinion. The unique selling point for Namco’s usual gaming is a unique and fun handling system, beautiful scenery and slick, intuitive presentation rolled into a short lived but addictive experience that has some replay value. You get all that here and interestingly that just about sums up this game. Strangely though for a Namco game, the handling of the cars has a foundation far closer to reality than Ridge Racer or any other Namco game I can think of and thus might be of more interest to sim racers than some other equally mainstream racing games.

The bulk of the game is a story mode, but you can also time trial, race split screen with a buddy or take part in certain events. The split-screen works super smooth and with full graphical effects. But lets focus here on the story. You are Rena, an Ambulance driver turned racing driver. Your career progresses as you complete the various track/car combinations thrown at you and finish in sufficiently competitive positions. Between racing chaptors (14) there’s occasional pre-rendered videos revealing your career progression. The video here is CG, modelled by Namco’s Tekken team – which should give you a good idea of the quality on offer. However the story is only as useful/interesting as similar efforts in other video games and can’t compete with big budget short films. Consider the CG an interlude/reward not a story because despite the promising start, the story just fades to nothing.

So is the game addictive? You bet. Is it too easy? No, it’s moderately easy on the normal setting, however you can quickly alter the difficulty before each and every race, so if you’re upto the task, use manual gears, first person view, turn off brake assist and use hard setting…it’s extremely hard then – let’s assume ten-fifteen hours of gaming. Perhaps 6-8 if you move to medium when you struggle. Like all good racing games, you always know where you dropped a few tenths of a second and where you screwed up and so it becomes an addictive experience if you just resist the medium difficulty setting.

Some of circuits on offer deserve particular mention: There’s a great reproduction of the Japanese Suzuka circuit (in long and short). This reproduction of Suzuka makes me feel right at home as though I was playing a new car on the circuit offered by F355 on Dreamcast…which means you just have to learn the car’s handling to be successful. In addition you will feel right at home with one of the rally circuits (yes there’s some rallying as well as circuit racing) reminds you of Gran Turismo Deep Forest. In addition there’s Phillip Island, an Oval, some drag strips and a reasonable Monaco. At Monaco the draw distance is fantastic and looks very good. As graphics go in general the game is perhaps between adequate to good. By that, I mean it’s not a market leader, but you will still see lots of effects, some nice camera work and interesting things to look at that make you nod your head a few times with a slight grin. The screen grabs available on the net don’t really do the game much justice as you don’t feel the depth, impression of speed and smoothness of play.

Each car sounds great and the cars I used all had their own engine sound, from the backfire to the screeching tyres breaking free to the incidental wind and rumble strip noise. There’s lots of car classes to choose from including rally cars, Le Mans cars, GT, vintage etc. There isn’t a vast array on offer, but a varied choice nonetheless.

In R:Racing, I found it useful to have the ability to immediately restart a race when you screw up the first corner.

One interesting feature is the pressure meter, not previously seen in racing games (to my knowledge). As you chase opponents a meter pop above their car and the more pressure you put on them (weaving about for instance) the greater it fills. When red, you can rest assured of a major screw up from them on the next corner…maybe lunging too deep, maybe a power-oversteer spin.

Like any racing game, it’s about the tracks, cars and setups. Choose carefully and you’ll find a rewarding experience here. In particular I disliked the vintage cars – they seemed to power oversteer out of every bend and become too much hard work. The Formula Audi Palmer thing (excuse LMP car ignorance) is much fun and the Rally cars on the asphalt tracks are great ‘drift’ experience cars. As setups go, I found that the most rewarding thing to do is remove brake-assist and leave the rest. Playing with the setups seemed to give the cars a bad attitude that they just didn’t need. You will need to play with the gears a little though to win on Hard.

Other winning triumphs in R: Racing? Well for me the time trial mode is good…whereby cutting a corner means a curt ‘lap time disregarded’ message is displayed. However sadly there’s no ghost car. Another neat touchs….a twin engine Fiat 500, brilliant Dualshock button allocation menus, a fantastic Mercedes touring car which is very powerful and rolls if pushed too hard and slipstream effects are just subtle enough to be useful but not over-done.

For the hardcore RSC members, this is not your bag. However, if you enjoy Rallisport Challenge, Gotham Racing, NFS et al, and if you’re looking for a new racing game and enjoy tweaking suspension and gears to improve performance then this is a rewarding, demanding and reasonably addictive experience that might offer ten hours of trouble free fun that your young nephew or spouse could also enjoy with you. Perhaps a game I’ve similarly enjoyed in recent times is the Taito Battle Gear series.

Having the benefit of playing and reviewing the game over the past few weeks the game has already entered the UK charts at 37 and instantly dropped out. I’m personally disappointed because I believe the game deserves a much wider (if more mass market) audience. Perhaps some players tried the demo and didn’t give it enough time? For me the game didn’t come to life until at least five hours in, when I’d learnt the more subtle nuances of the handling and had opportunity to play split screen and to have some friends play too. Or maybe some folks were put off by mediocre scores in other reviews? So if other reviewers put you off the game, but you’re still on the fence…go for it. If you’re still not convinced…wait until it’s budget but do give it a try and I don’t mean ten minutes on easy settings, there’s no reward there.

Sim rating – 2 / 5
Game rating 3.5 / 5 (ie above average)