Friday, February 22, 2008

Classic British Motor Racing


You know you're in trouble when there's a typo on the friggin' box. Not a simple "too" instead of "to" or anything like that, mind you - no, the box for Classic British Motor Racing actually features the line "Wet and Wild Ride". This makes no sense whatsoever, of course - there are 13 cars in the game, but no watercraft - until you realize that the line is actually lifted from one of the publisher Bold's previous games, Kawasaki Jet Ski. Someone forgot to type in a new line when cutting and pasting the old layout for this new game's box.

With that level of attention to detail, what could possibly go wrong with the game itself? Everything.

Where do we start? Okay, how about the fact that it takes a full minute to load up? What is this, 1986? Are we using tape drives again? Then, when it finally arrives, you're treated to graphics and sound pulled straight out of the early PlayStation 2 era. Well, that might be an exaggeration - the sound is more like a PSone game.


Then there's the fact that only two cars (each with a whopping three possible color schemes) are unlocked at the start. Then again, unless names like Healy 3000, TR2, TR3a, TR6, MG Midget and Riley RM mean something to you, the only one of these 13 vehicles you're going to recognize is the Mini Cooper anyhow, so screw it.

After all, it's not as if any of them handle like anything other than a brick-laden sled with its runners wrapped in bacon. The cars accelerate slowly and have a low maximum speed - even antique high-performance cars should be more fleet of foot than this - and the controls (tilt the remote to steer, press buttons for gas, brake, and e-brake) are sloppy and overly sensitive. Thus, once you get up to a respectible speed, steering or hand-brake powersliding are practically non-options.

This crap-tacular arrangement is one of three reasons you'll probably find yourself playing the very first time trial over and over. The second reason is that there are six tracks in the game, but only one of them is unlocked at the game's start. So that's the one you get until you master it.


Posted by wii-play at 1:19 PM
Labels: