This won’t be a massive review, for two reasons. I don’t think this classic really needs me to ramble all that much to do it justice, plus, I won’t lie I haven’t not played it all that much around 6 hours or so, so a fair chunk at the very least. What can I say I’m a busy guy, truthfully I’ve been trying to get the platinum on GhostWire, I’m nearly there only another 70k spirits to collect and then just the remaining collectibles I’ve not found yet, as well as playing WWE 2k23 a fair bit. I’m easily distracted, which leads me to playing a hundred games a go. I fully intend to play this game some more causing further backlog where it isn’t required.
Anyhow, on with the review. I’m going to first mention the soundtrack for this game. I feel it needs an honourable mention of sorts. With this coming out in 2004, the soundtrack is littered with punk, pop-punk bangers. From the likes of Rise Against, Pennywise, My Chemical Romance, the Romanes just to mention a few. This is something I find games of now really lack, it goes hand in hand with the Need for Speed Underground 1 and 2 with their glorious soundtracks. It could just be age catching up with me at this point as I am no longer a sprite fit youngling. I’m an old, out of shape mess who has fond memories of late 90’s to early 2000’s music. As well as playing these racing gems back in a time where I didn’t have mass debt and a job.
Again, back to the review I digress once more. The gameplay doesn’t need to be mentioned all that much it’s an arcade racer. At it’s core, it’s like any base racing game, and with any other title it gets spiced up in their own way. In this case it’s the carnage. I love it. It’s definitely the biggest strength of the game, but sometimes it’s also a detriment. This could be from just the games age showing through, meaning the driving isn’t as flush and receptive as the modern day counterparts, and with the base cars turning and drifting is the drizzling shits. What normally happens is I just plough into oncoming traffic, a pillar or head first into a blocked off section. As I said it could be the driving or it could be that I am just dog shit at the game, who’s to say. Don’t get me wrong the driving isn’t horrendous and works well enough, you can tell the difference between cars. The tracks aren’t massively populated but the longer trucks and buses can be a real pain in the arse though. Along with standard races, you get time trials, preview laps, face offs, road rage and crash mode. The last two being the best versions. The aim to make your opponents crash the most through take-downs and slamming them in a standard race setting. With crash mode, get some pick ups and then ram into traffic and just exploding the ever loving shit of everything in the vicinity for the highest cost from damage caused.
The game in terms of graphics and fidelity doesn’t hold up all that well. It doesn’t look bad but you can tell it’s coming on 20 years old. It handles and plays well, if not looking a tad fuzzy on my 4k TV, but it wasn’t made with that screen in mind. With the 173 events spread over multiple tracks in the US, Europe and Asia. It has a decent amount of variety and with everything being fast paced and really soaking in the arcade simulator minus the £1 a go play. Along with like 70 unlockable cars from getting gold medals, total takedowns, damage caused form the crash mode. There is enough to keep you occupied for a good 25-30 hours just to unlock and do everything. It’s highly replayable, and the most important it’s so much fucking fun. You can easily pass an hour in no time, in just trying to achieve a gold medal in one event.
I am awarding this game a 10/10, Real Fuckin’ Tasty.
I can’t overstate enough how much fun it is, even in the few short hours I’ve put into it. I was never bored and just enjoyed smashing into other cars at normal speed or whilst boosting. It still plays well, and enough variety to stop it from getting stale fast. Also, being on the PS2 it has the added benefit of local co-op. Something that I can easily see ramping the fun up even more. Not every game needs to be a graphical juggernaut, with an oscar level driven story and voice acting. Not that is a bad thing. I just think most games don’t have the simplicity and fun this game still showcases far above many newer games that fit into the same category. Even after nabbbing some footage for this review I carried on playing for another hour.
Released 7th September 2004, Sony Playstation 2.
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