Speed Racer

Hands up if you liked The Matrix movies? Ok, hands up if you liked the movie Speed Racer? Alright, hands up if you knew they were both made by the same people (the Wachowski brothers)?

Alright a few of you will probably be wondering why you’ve put your hands up, but those of you out there who knew that bit of trivia are an elite few. For most Speed Racer seemed a bit of a cross-over of Herbie, Wipeout 2097 and some Rollerball for good measure.

This means that I’m actually in a rather uncharted territory. It’s usually the case that a game which comes along on the tail of a successful movie is terrible, rushed job; however this game’s actually better than the movie ever could be and leaves me begging the question – why did they bother making this into a film?

For those of you out there who’ve no idea what I’m talking about, Speed Racer is a racing game which is set somewhere in the future. You are put in charge of the Mach 6 vehicle and you must use a mixture of handling, speed and something called ‘car-fu’.

This game has it all, fast cars, fantastic courses that defy gravity (and nearly every other physics rule) and tricky opponents for you to try and outsmart. The trick to this game is being defensive but not passive. By this I mean, observe the areas on the course where you can overtake without smashing into a barrier or time your turbo boosts to perfection. By doing this, you’ll slide and force your opponents wide. Failing this, you can use your spring-loaded hydraulics (which did make me scream ‘Go Go Gadget Wheels!’ every time I hit the select button).

The controls are a simple affair of pressing left and right to turn that way, press up to activate your boost (which you gain through driving carefully and not hitting objects), pressing down causes you to brake (like you’ll ever want/need to know that) and select button activates your special jumping move.

You have the option to play ‘story mode’, ‘free race’ or ‘challenge’. In the ‘story mode’ your mission’s pretty straight-forward, second place is for losers and so you must finish first to unlock the next course. In ‘free race’ mode you’ll have the option to pick the ability of your opposition from normal to difficult. Additionally, you can pick from the a variety of vehicles from the film, namely; Mach 6, Grey Ghost, Snake Oiler, Prince Kabala, Racer X and “Cannonball” Taylor. All of these vehicles have different attributes, which mean you can have a faster car, one with better handling, improved handling or jumping-jacks.

In ‘challenge’ mode you have the option to play either in a survival race or a chasing race. The survival race is where the player in last position after each lap gets eliminated. The chase setting is a high-octane race where you must overtake your opponent within the time limit.

So overall then, this game provides a superb racing experience with a few brutal twists which will give you added challenge and satisfaction.

Rating 78%

Positives

Challenging and plenty of different modes to master

Inventive courses

Good opponents present a challenge

Negatives

Graphics look a little sketchy at times

No option to modify the car to suit your style is a bit of a shame

Sounds aren’t that special

Preferably this shouldn’t have anything to do with the movie – it’s too good!