https://www.tendocity.net/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 20:23:15 +0000 MyBB https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=7373 Tue, 12 Apr 2022 18:44:10 +0000 Dark Jaguar]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=7373
Fitting with that one, I'm not picky, and if you'd prefer to review the Super Famicom version (with a fan translation or whatever) or the PSP remaster, go for it!]]>
Fitting with that one, I'm not picky, and if you'd prefer to review the Super Famicom version (with a fan translation or whatever) or the PSP remaster, go for it!]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=7372 Tue, 12 Apr 2022 18:41:53 +0000 Dark Jaguar]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=7372 https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=7344 Tue, 19 Oct 2021 17:24:39 +0000 Dark Jaguar]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=7344
In the spirit of "me too", they followed up an amazing trilogy with a cart racer.  By this time, Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing had both been out for a few years.  This was nearing the end of the Playstation's life cycle.  What could Naughty Dog bring to the genre that those other two didn't already accomplish?  Was this merely a way to offer Playstation owners an alternative and cash in on the emerging genre's popularity?

(Note that this is exclusively a review of the Naughty Dog created original game, and NOT a review of any of the sequels made by other studios after Naughty Dog sold the IP.  Personally, I'm not a fan of the later games and consider them inferior in many ways to what the original offered, right down to basic controls.  If you prefer the sequels, there's some good news.  The remake added in fan favorite levels and characters from the later games which I think brings in the best of both worlds, superior controls and overall design mixed with a greater set of tracks.)

As it turns out, Naughty Dog would prove they understood what made cart racing work.  They didn't just toss it out, they gave it their all.  The Mario Party inspired "Crash Bash" (not made by Naughty Dog) truly was a dull and by the numbers experience, but Crash Team Racing managed to set itself apart.  Note that to get the most out of this game, you'll need an accessory.  The Playstation 1, after all, only had two controller ports.  Buy a multitap to bring out the most for this title.  That unfortunately will have to be a mark against it, but a minor mark at best.

I'll be considering both the extensive single player mode and the multiplayer aspects, and try to consider the game both in comparison to it's contemporaries and on it's own merits.  With any luck, I'll succeed.  If not, god help us all.  Signing out.

Visuals (Henceforth replacing the category "graphics" in my reviews): Compared to Mario Kart 64 and it's prerendered sprites, this game goes for in-engine renders much closer to Diddy Kong Racing, but without even that game's billboarded cart sprites.  As a result, the visuals end up blockier, but their movement is smoother and more varied.  Generally, as is often the case between these two consoles, models look a lot more "angular" and sharp than they do on N64.  There's none of that smoothing the N64 used, but if you're used to that, it's a rather nostalgic look.  Artistically, characters and tracks hold up well.  All the model designs went for an unrealistic cartoony look with flashy colors.  Games with such a style have aged far better, and so it is here.  Colors are "brighter" than in Diddy Kong Racing, closer to the palette used in Mario Kart 64.  The game's level design hews closer to Diddy Kong Racing however, with a higher focus on "island" locales than others, but not to their exclusive use.  Visually, the game holds up.  However, there's no arguing against the dramatic improvement seen in the PS4 era remake.  That game even allows for a skin using "retro angular" Crash and that cart.

The game runs mostly smooth.  Some of the cut scenes have lower FPS, but the racing itself manages a usually smooth 30 FPS.  Considering the quality of the visuals and the limitations of the Playstation compared to N64, this is very impressive and more importantly, makes the game a joy to play.  Consistent frame rates are critical for a game like this, and this one delivers.  It isn't F-Zero X's 60FPS, but it's still smooth.

Sound Design: The game's sounds are clear and stand apart from each other, which makes it easy to make out just what's happening around and behind you.  The sounds themselves are high quality, higher quality than what N64 sound samples tend to be which one would expect due to the higher capacity available to the game.  Sounds are satisfying or crushing in just the right measure.  A turbo boost is clear and powerful, though Mario Kart 64's mushroom boosts still make the most satisfying sound of the three games.  Character voices are fitting, well acted, but don't overstay their welcome.  There's no need to fiddle with options to disable commentary ala Mickey's Speedway USA.  The game's music is exciting and energetic as fits a racing game.  Every track has appropriate music fitting to the theme of the racetrack.  However, outside of a few tracks, not as many "stand out" to me compared to Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing.  It's perhaps unfair to compare directly to those, since rare few composers in the industry compare to the legends behind those soundtracks, but the fact is in spite of that CTR's music holds up competitively with it.  (Hilariously, one of the hidden characters, a penguin, has two voice samples that are clear developer placeholders delivered by an adult in dead pan.  It's- it's just wonderful when they get triggered.)  One added note for story mode.  Diddy Kong Racing had voice samples, but limited it to typical race responses and that "brief sample" style of talking to characters.  CTR has full voice acting for the entire story mode.  This is hardly a requirement and in some cases I'd consider it a negative (Symphony of the Night is probably better without voice acting during dialog, and King's Quest V is absolutely superior in it's floppy disk text based version), but the voice acting is solid enough here that it pulls ahead thanks to that.

Gameplay Design: This game has taken some very clear inspiration from Diddy Kong Racing.  Rather than merely having "cups" to race for, there's an overworld island setting with numerous challenges behind massive doors.  There's places to explore, secrets on each track to find, and boss encounters finishing up each new zone.  If I could offer a criticism, story mode doesn't allow you to change racers.  Once you pick someone, you're stuck with them.  This is partly justified in that the tiki mask aiding you through the campaign changes depending on whether you are playing a villain or a hero (and in one case, that same penguin, apparently there's a dark heart of evil behind that cute face because the dark tiki helps him out).  However, story shouldn't get in the way of something like this I feel, and it holds back on experimentation when all you're trying to do is see if a different class of racer would help you win a particular challenge better.  The game offers three difficulty levels at the start, affecting the standard cup speed.  This does provide something over Diddy Kong Racing.  You can accomplish all of story mode with a lower skill requirement if you just want to see it all, or you can really challenge yourself.

Diddy Kong Racing offered three vehicle types, and as a result it's going to have superior gameplay variety right out the gate.  CTR makes up for this by expanding the number of additional challenges the game offers.  Just like DKR, you'll have basic victory conditions, time trial races, and "collect all of X item around the level" challenges.  Where it goes above and beyond is working in "cup challenges" similar to more traditional racers within the single player story mode and numerous additional mechanics.  For example, it's time trial mode adds an extra wrinkle with "time crates".  Break one and you get extra time added to your countdown.  In a normal track, this presents interesting choices like whether it's better to make a sharper turn, or to go out of your way to break a crate and get a better time that way.  The higher level time trials often require breaking every single box which sadly removes that strategic choice.  But then, there's the "battle arena" time trials.  They require breaking every box within a certain period of time and ignore "laps" since well, they're battle arenas.  This presents a very unique sort of challenge where the goal is simply finding the most ideal and fastest way to break each crate.  The freedom to tackle each one in the order you so choose really makes those levels stand out.

The game's maps are an interesting set.  The very first map they ever made for that game was a beach level from Diddy Kong Racing ported directly to the engine just to test if the Playstation hardware could handle such design.  This informs the guiding design elements you'll see often through the game, with basic concepts for tracks lifted right out of the N64 games.  However, it's the execution where they really shine.  Many tracks are large sprawling webs of alternative pathways and skill based shortcuts.  It's far more than Mario Kart 64 and even improves upon what Diddy Kong Racing managed.  You can race the same track a dozen times and not take the same pathway twice.  Of course, variety isn't everything.  The tracks are also honed to perfection around the specific capabilities of the racers, so that whatever speed or inertia your character may have, every turn is possible to make without breaking (outside of turbo boosting at the wrong time).  This game is a copy of what Nintendo and Rare did, but it's a copy that learned and expanded on those ideas and the track layouts show this.

The powerups are the same set we all know.  You've got rolling bombs which are basically green shells, homing missiles as red shells, a protective force bubble, splatty chemical beakers to set traps, a "turbo boost" item, and of course those "last place" power items which, this time around, aren't a guaranteed hit.  Much like Super Mario Kart's coins and DKR's bananas, this game uses the Crash serie's staple "Wumpa fruit" as a minor speed booster, with a very interesting plus tied into it.  Gather 10 fruit and not only do you max out your speed, you "power up" your powerup.  In Diddy Kong Racing, you had to collect the exact same powerup twice to accomplish this.  This could often be challenging or even impossible depending on circumstances outside your control, and one missed touch would reset the level of your powerup completely.  Tying in item powerups to the fruit makes it far more reliable to pull off while still tying it to player skill.  Again, it shows a mastery and knowledge of what they're imitating that they're able to improve upon existing ideas like this.  When it comes to speed trials, every trial has three rankings of trophy, but 100% completion (by the game's reckoning) only requires the lowest level trophy.

So many of these things unlock new tracks, characters, and a few other things.  There are also cheat codes you can input to unlock all of those things wihout even bothering with those challenges if you'd just prefer to jump into multiplayer and ignore single player entirely.  Options like this are always appreciated, as I did when I found out F-Zero X offered such codes as an option.  One character in particular, again the penguin, is unlocked exclusively by a button code.  Go for it, it's not cheating in that specific case.

Controls: Here's where a racing game can completely fall to pieces.  Controls in this game are sharp, smooth, and responsive.  Now, I need to add a caveat.  You will want to play this game with a duel shock controller.  Racing games simply provide far more control with an analog stick than a d-pad.  This is what I played mine with, and it's what I'm reviewing.  Fortunately, they're rather easy to come by and when Sony made that transition to their revised controller, they invested heavily in getting as many out there and outright replacing the purely digital model as they could.

The game controls essentially like any other cart racer.  Turning, breaking, accelerating, item usage, and "sliding".  Like Mario Kart 64, the drift button is also a "hop" button, which allows for a brief moment to re-aim your cart just before the slide starts.  It's something missing from DKR and Mickey's Speedway USA, but frankly it's a matter of personal taste which style you might prefer.  The bigger difference comes from how drift turbos are accomplished.  At the highest levels, you absolutely will need to master drifting and turbos in this game.  This is a pretty standard requirement of both MK64 and DKR so many will be used to this skill requirement.  Drift turbos now are activated on a button press rather than on letting go of the drift button.  There is a bar on the bottom of the screen indicating how much "boost" you have.  The game also indicates it with smoke and engine sounds much like the others, but this little bar is useful for a new reason.  You can now prematurely trigger a boost.  It won't last as long as a fully charged one, but for turns that involve much more shallow adjustments it can be hard to build it up all the way.  It'll often be faster in those situations to trigger numerous smaller boosts rather than charging up a longer one.  Further, drifting is no longer the only way to build turbo charge.  You also get them off of jumps.  This is also true in newer Mario Kart games, but this was the first I'm aware of to add this trick.  Since the drift and jump turbos both tie into the same meter, you can forgo a drift in favor of hitting a small jump instead to get a turbo built up with a combination.  This allows a lot of flexibility in how you approach challenges.  Combined with how flexible track layouts are in this game, that all adds up to a high skill ceiling, and you'll need to work pretty high up there when it comes to the greatest challenges.  The controls honestly manage to exceed both MK64 and DKR.  While Mickey's Speedway USA manages to eek out a win in overall smoothness and responsiveness (especially in drifting), the expansive available tricks and the revised and what I consider an improved way to trigger those tricks nets CTR the gold.

Story: A kart racer doesn't typically need a story at all, but with the focus on an exploratory overworld, a bit of story helps as "connective tissue" to tie everything you're doing together.  The basic plot of this game is Space Jam.  An evil super competitive alien has invaded and challenged the entire world (using a giant megaphone of course) to a race.  He wants to race and defeat the greatest racers on the planet, and if he wins or no one shows up, he'll turn the planet into a giant parking lot.  It actually manages to make MORE sense than Space Jam because world domination isn't the alien's goal, the thrill of being the best racer is.  So, the challenge and the threat follow naturally from the character in a way that Space Jam's doesn't.  Like Space Jam though, the characters have the same reason to "go along" with the challenge, they're powerless to resist the alien's power otherwise.  They have no choice.  It's not like Naughty Dog needed to think it through.  Heck, Mickey's Speedway USA has one of those most nonsensical plots I've ever seen.  However, they did and I appreciate that little extra effort.  For the record, yes this is essentially the plot of Diddy Kong Racing as well.  There, Wizpig is motivated by just wanting to cause general "chaos", and the race element stems from the nature of the island's strange magics.  It still works, but in a less direct and more abstract way.  In any case, by the end they manage to uncover ancient power that lets them ultimately defeat the alien when he, naturally, refuses to accept his defeat and decides to end the world anyway.  Fitting kid stuff that works well and serves as a lesson about being a sore loser and having good sportsmanship.  All in all, while not needed at all and hardly deep or meaningful, for a game with this design it fits and helps connect the overall world design.

Multiplayer: Once again, this game requires a purchase that the N64 racers don't, and multitaps are harder to come by than controllers, but not prohibitively so.  If you just want to buy it on the PS3 store, there's a trick apparently to getting that to work in 4 player mode.  I'd recommend looking it up in that case, but I played it on original hardware.  Still, the best way is probably to just get the remake on a modern console.

The game offers 4 player split screen, you and your friends racing with the same controls and on those same tracks from solo.  As tight as the controls are combined with how expansive the tracks are, this can result in some very fun nights.  Sadly, I didn't have this game at the height of it's popularity, but thanks to the remake I've enjoyed a number of online races.  I can safely say this can eat up afternoons just as well as MK64 did back then.  I'd say the multiplayer actually manages to give that vaunted old game a run for it's money, but since I'm talking about the remake it's more fair to compare it to Mario Kart 8, and in THAT case MK8 easily laps CTR.

Battle mode's tracks are well designed arenas with a focus on aerial advantage.  There's so many ways to gain air and fly over your enemies that it's pretty much a requirement to think in 3D when competing with your opposition.  Beyond that, it's standard fare battle mode.  To this day, I still consider Super Mario Kart to have the best battle mode, but this one's no slouch.

Completion: There are so many extra tracks, challenge modes, characters and "cheats" to find that full completion will take some time.  It'll also depend on what you consider full completion.  The lowest time trials for each track (plus every other trophy and win in the game) are all that's needed for 100%.  To get 101%, you need the "silver" trophy for every time trial.  Getting the equivalent of "gold" (purple) doesn't net you an extra percentage at all, but it's still recognized so for true completion, it seems that will be needed.  Even ignoring that though, the game offers so much that like Diddy Kong Racing you'll be busy for a while.  There's FAR more to keep you coming back than any Mario Kart game will offer, at least for solo play.  However, there's the issue of no character switching in story mode.  This is still a problem, partly mitigated by an unlocked version of the time trials on the game's main menu.  In this way, you can get those trophies with different characters rather than being stuck with the same one on every single track.  This game is a completionist's dream.

Challenge: Hard.  This game is hard, Rareware hard.  You'll need a high degree of mastery to stand a chance at the highest challenges the game offers.  However, as I mentioned earlier, there is so much flexibility both in controls and in how you approach most stages that it results in a rather high skill ceiling.  This should allow you to clear challenges like they're a breeze once you reach a certain level of skill.  It will just take a while to reach it.  I know I have lots of room for growth myself in the game.  It's a rewarding and "fair" sort of challenge for much of the game's trials, but the cup races are something else.  There is a high degree of rubber banding the AI demonstrates in this game, and that's going to bite you in some rather unfair ways from time to time there.

Overall, my opinion of this game has only gone up over the years.  From solid controls to excellent track design, this game felt like a natural evolution of what MK64 and DKR had started.  I only wish cart racers had continued in this vein, but sadly most challengers would fade away leaving only Mario Kart, and Nintendo never felt the need to develop unique challenges and story modes in the way Rare and Naughty Dog did.  It's a shame, since certain things like how powerups and boosting were handled were done both uniquely and in ways that better added to a player's flexibility in this one.  (Maybe one day I'll finally sit down with Sonic All Star Racing and give that a try.)  I highly recommend this game to anyone who passed over it as "just another Mario Kart clone".  It's that, yes, but so much more.]]>
In the spirit of "me too", they followed up an amazing trilogy with a cart racer.  By this time, Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing had both been out for a few years.  This was nearing the end of the Playstation's life cycle.  What could Naughty Dog bring to the genre that those other two didn't already accomplish?  Was this merely a way to offer Playstation owners an alternative and cash in on the emerging genre's popularity?

(Note that this is exclusively a review of the Naughty Dog created original game, and NOT a review of any of the sequels made by other studios after Naughty Dog sold the IP.  Personally, I'm not a fan of the later games and consider them inferior in many ways to what the original offered, right down to basic controls.  If you prefer the sequels, there's some good news.  The remake added in fan favorite levels and characters from the later games which I think brings in the best of both worlds, superior controls and overall design mixed with a greater set of tracks.)

As it turns out, Naughty Dog would prove they understood what made cart racing work.  They didn't just toss it out, they gave it their all.  The Mario Party inspired "Crash Bash" (not made by Naughty Dog) truly was a dull and by the numbers experience, but Crash Team Racing managed to set itself apart.  Note that to get the most out of this game, you'll need an accessory.  The Playstation 1, after all, only had two controller ports.  Buy a multitap to bring out the most for this title.  That unfortunately will have to be a mark against it, but a minor mark at best.

I'll be considering both the extensive single player mode and the multiplayer aspects, and try to consider the game both in comparison to it's contemporaries and on it's own merits.  With any luck, I'll succeed.  If not, god help us all.  Signing out.

Visuals (Henceforth replacing the category "graphics" in my reviews): Compared to Mario Kart 64 and it's prerendered sprites, this game goes for in-engine renders much closer to Diddy Kong Racing, but without even that game's billboarded cart sprites.  As a result, the visuals end up blockier, but their movement is smoother and more varied.  Generally, as is often the case between these two consoles, models look a lot more "angular" and sharp than they do on N64.  There's none of that smoothing the N64 used, but if you're used to that, it's a rather nostalgic look.  Artistically, characters and tracks hold up well.  All the model designs went for an unrealistic cartoony look with flashy colors.  Games with such a style have aged far better, and so it is here.  Colors are "brighter" than in Diddy Kong Racing, closer to the palette used in Mario Kart 64.  The game's level design hews closer to Diddy Kong Racing however, with a higher focus on "island" locales than others, but not to their exclusive use.  Visually, the game holds up.  However, there's no arguing against the dramatic improvement seen in the PS4 era remake.  That game even allows for a skin using "retro angular" Crash and that cart.

The game runs mostly smooth.  Some of the cut scenes have lower FPS, but the racing itself manages a usually smooth 30 FPS.  Considering the quality of the visuals and the limitations of the Playstation compared to N64, this is very impressive and more importantly, makes the game a joy to play.  Consistent frame rates are critical for a game like this, and this one delivers.  It isn't F-Zero X's 60FPS, but it's still smooth.

Sound Design: The game's sounds are clear and stand apart from each other, which makes it easy to make out just what's happening around and behind you.  The sounds themselves are high quality, higher quality than what N64 sound samples tend to be which one would expect due to the higher capacity available to the game.  Sounds are satisfying or crushing in just the right measure.  A turbo boost is clear and powerful, though Mario Kart 64's mushroom boosts still make the most satisfying sound of the three games.  Character voices are fitting, well acted, but don't overstay their welcome.  There's no need to fiddle with options to disable commentary ala Mickey's Speedway USA.  The game's music is exciting and energetic as fits a racing game.  Every track has appropriate music fitting to the theme of the racetrack.  However, outside of a few tracks, not as many "stand out" to me compared to Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing.  It's perhaps unfair to compare directly to those, since rare few composers in the industry compare to the legends behind those soundtracks, but the fact is in spite of that CTR's music holds up competitively with it.  (Hilariously, one of the hidden characters, a penguin, has two voice samples that are clear developer placeholders delivered by an adult in dead pan.  It's- it's just wonderful when they get triggered.)  One added note for story mode.  Diddy Kong Racing had voice samples, but limited it to typical race responses and that "brief sample" style of talking to characters.  CTR has full voice acting for the entire story mode.  This is hardly a requirement and in some cases I'd consider it a negative (Symphony of the Night is probably better without voice acting during dialog, and King's Quest V is absolutely superior in it's floppy disk text based version), but the voice acting is solid enough here that it pulls ahead thanks to that.

Gameplay Design: This game has taken some very clear inspiration from Diddy Kong Racing.  Rather than merely having "cups" to race for, there's an overworld island setting with numerous challenges behind massive doors.  There's places to explore, secrets on each track to find, and boss encounters finishing up each new zone.  If I could offer a criticism, story mode doesn't allow you to change racers.  Once you pick someone, you're stuck with them.  This is partly justified in that the tiki mask aiding you through the campaign changes depending on whether you are playing a villain or a hero (and in one case, that same penguin, apparently there's a dark heart of evil behind that cute face because the dark tiki helps him out).  However, story shouldn't get in the way of something like this I feel, and it holds back on experimentation when all you're trying to do is see if a different class of racer would help you win a particular challenge better.  The game offers three difficulty levels at the start, affecting the standard cup speed.  This does provide something over Diddy Kong Racing.  You can accomplish all of story mode with a lower skill requirement if you just want to see it all, or you can really challenge yourself.

Diddy Kong Racing offered three vehicle types, and as a result it's going to have superior gameplay variety right out the gate.  CTR makes up for this by expanding the number of additional challenges the game offers.  Just like DKR, you'll have basic victory conditions, time trial races, and "collect all of X item around the level" challenges.  Where it goes above and beyond is working in "cup challenges" similar to more traditional racers within the single player story mode and numerous additional mechanics.  For example, it's time trial mode adds an extra wrinkle with "time crates".  Break one and you get extra time added to your countdown.  In a normal track, this presents interesting choices like whether it's better to make a sharper turn, or to go out of your way to break a crate and get a better time that way.  The higher level time trials often require breaking every single box which sadly removes that strategic choice.  But then, there's the "battle arena" time trials.  They require breaking every box within a certain period of time and ignore "laps" since well, they're battle arenas.  This presents a very unique sort of challenge where the goal is simply finding the most ideal and fastest way to break each crate.  The freedom to tackle each one in the order you so choose really makes those levels stand out.

The game's maps are an interesting set.  The very first map they ever made for that game was a beach level from Diddy Kong Racing ported directly to the engine just to test if the Playstation hardware could handle such design.  This informs the guiding design elements you'll see often through the game, with basic concepts for tracks lifted right out of the N64 games.  However, it's the execution where they really shine.  Many tracks are large sprawling webs of alternative pathways and skill based shortcuts.  It's far more than Mario Kart 64 and even improves upon what Diddy Kong Racing managed.  You can race the same track a dozen times and not take the same pathway twice.  Of course, variety isn't everything.  The tracks are also honed to perfection around the specific capabilities of the racers, so that whatever speed or inertia your character may have, every turn is possible to make without breaking (outside of turbo boosting at the wrong time).  This game is a copy of what Nintendo and Rare did, but it's a copy that learned and expanded on those ideas and the track layouts show this.

The powerups are the same set we all know.  You've got rolling bombs which are basically green shells, homing missiles as red shells, a protective force bubble, splatty chemical beakers to set traps, a "turbo boost" item, and of course those "last place" power items which, this time around, aren't a guaranteed hit.  Much like Super Mario Kart's coins and DKR's bananas, this game uses the Crash serie's staple "Wumpa fruit" as a minor speed booster, with a very interesting plus tied into it.  Gather 10 fruit and not only do you max out your speed, you "power up" your powerup.  In Diddy Kong Racing, you had to collect the exact same powerup twice to accomplish this.  This could often be challenging or even impossible depending on circumstances outside your control, and one missed touch would reset the level of your powerup completely.  Tying in item powerups to the fruit makes it far more reliable to pull off while still tying it to player skill.  Again, it shows a mastery and knowledge of what they're imitating that they're able to improve upon existing ideas like this.  When it comes to speed trials, every trial has three rankings of trophy, but 100% completion (by the game's reckoning) only requires the lowest level trophy.

So many of these things unlock new tracks, characters, and a few other things.  There are also cheat codes you can input to unlock all of those things wihout even bothering with those challenges if you'd just prefer to jump into multiplayer and ignore single player entirely.  Options like this are always appreciated, as I did when I found out F-Zero X offered such codes as an option.  One character in particular, again the penguin, is unlocked exclusively by a button code.  Go for it, it's not cheating in that specific case.

Controls: Here's where a racing game can completely fall to pieces.  Controls in this game are sharp, smooth, and responsive.  Now, I need to add a caveat.  You will want to play this game with a duel shock controller.  Racing games simply provide far more control with an analog stick than a d-pad.  This is what I played mine with, and it's what I'm reviewing.  Fortunately, they're rather easy to come by and when Sony made that transition to their revised controller, they invested heavily in getting as many out there and outright replacing the purely digital model as they could.

The game controls essentially like any other cart racer.  Turning, breaking, accelerating, item usage, and "sliding".  Like Mario Kart 64, the drift button is also a "hop" button, which allows for a brief moment to re-aim your cart just before the slide starts.  It's something missing from DKR and Mickey's Speedway USA, but frankly it's a matter of personal taste which style you might prefer.  The bigger difference comes from how drift turbos are accomplished.  At the highest levels, you absolutely will need to master drifting and turbos in this game.  This is a pretty standard requirement of both MK64 and DKR so many will be used to this skill requirement.  Drift turbos now are activated on a button press rather than on letting go of the drift button.  There is a bar on the bottom of the screen indicating how much "boost" you have.  The game also indicates it with smoke and engine sounds much like the others, but this little bar is useful for a new reason.  You can now prematurely trigger a boost.  It won't last as long as a fully charged one, but for turns that involve much more shallow adjustments it can be hard to build it up all the way.  It'll often be faster in those situations to trigger numerous smaller boosts rather than charging up a longer one.  Further, drifting is no longer the only way to build turbo charge.  You also get them off of jumps.  This is also true in newer Mario Kart games, but this was the first I'm aware of to add this trick.  Since the drift and jump turbos both tie into the same meter, you can forgo a drift in favor of hitting a small jump instead to get a turbo built up with a combination.  This allows a lot of flexibility in how you approach challenges.  Combined with how flexible track layouts are in this game, that all adds up to a high skill ceiling, and you'll need to work pretty high up there when it comes to the greatest challenges.  The controls honestly manage to exceed both MK64 and DKR.  While Mickey's Speedway USA manages to eek out a win in overall smoothness and responsiveness (especially in drifting), the expansive available tricks and the revised and what I consider an improved way to trigger those tricks nets CTR the gold.

Story: A kart racer doesn't typically need a story at all, but with the focus on an exploratory overworld, a bit of story helps as "connective tissue" to tie everything you're doing together.  The basic plot of this game is Space Jam.  An evil super competitive alien has invaded and challenged the entire world (using a giant megaphone of course) to a race.  He wants to race and defeat the greatest racers on the planet, and if he wins or no one shows up, he'll turn the planet into a giant parking lot.  It actually manages to make MORE sense than Space Jam because world domination isn't the alien's goal, the thrill of being the best racer is.  So, the challenge and the threat follow naturally from the character in a way that Space Jam's doesn't.  Like Space Jam though, the characters have the same reason to "go along" with the challenge, they're powerless to resist the alien's power otherwise.  They have no choice.  It's not like Naughty Dog needed to think it through.  Heck, Mickey's Speedway USA has one of those most nonsensical plots I've ever seen.  However, they did and I appreciate that little extra effort.  For the record, yes this is essentially the plot of Diddy Kong Racing as well.  There, Wizpig is motivated by just wanting to cause general "chaos", and the race element stems from the nature of the island's strange magics.  It still works, but in a less direct and more abstract way.  In any case, by the end they manage to uncover ancient power that lets them ultimately defeat the alien when he, naturally, refuses to accept his defeat and decides to end the world anyway.  Fitting kid stuff that works well and serves as a lesson about being a sore loser and having good sportsmanship.  All in all, while not needed at all and hardly deep or meaningful, for a game with this design it fits and helps connect the overall world design.

Multiplayer: Once again, this game requires a purchase that the N64 racers don't, and multitaps are harder to come by than controllers, but not prohibitively so.  If you just want to buy it on the PS3 store, there's a trick apparently to getting that to work in 4 player mode.  I'd recommend looking it up in that case, but I played it on original hardware.  Still, the best way is probably to just get the remake on a modern console.

The game offers 4 player split screen, you and your friends racing with the same controls and on those same tracks from solo.  As tight as the controls are combined with how expansive the tracks are, this can result in some very fun nights.  Sadly, I didn't have this game at the height of it's popularity, but thanks to the remake I've enjoyed a number of online races.  I can safely say this can eat up afternoons just as well as MK64 did back then.  I'd say the multiplayer actually manages to give that vaunted old game a run for it's money, but since I'm talking about the remake it's more fair to compare it to Mario Kart 8, and in THAT case MK8 easily laps CTR.

Battle mode's tracks are well designed arenas with a focus on aerial advantage.  There's so many ways to gain air and fly over your enemies that it's pretty much a requirement to think in 3D when competing with your opposition.  Beyond that, it's standard fare battle mode.  To this day, I still consider Super Mario Kart to have the best battle mode, but this one's no slouch.

Completion: There are so many extra tracks, challenge modes, characters and "cheats" to find that full completion will take some time.  It'll also depend on what you consider full completion.  The lowest time trials for each track (plus every other trophy and win in the game) are all that's needed for 100%.  To get 101%, you need the "silver" trophy for every time trial.  Getting the equivalent of "gold" (purple) doesn't net you an extra percentage at all, but it's still recognized so for true completion, it seems that will be needed.  Even ignoring that though, the game offers so much that like Diddy Kong Racing you'll be busy for a while.  There's FAR more to keep you coming back than any Mario Kart game will offer, at least for solo play.  However, there's the issue of no character switching in story mode.  This is still a problem, partly mitigated by an unlocked version of the time trials on the game's main menu.  In this way, you can get those trophies with different characters rather than being stuck with the same one on every single track.  This game is a completionist's dream.

Challenge: Hard.  This game is hard, Rareware hard.  You'll need a high degree of mastery to stand a chance at the highest challenges the game offers.  However, as I mentioned earlier, there is so much flexibility both in controls and in how you approach most stages that it results in a rather high skill ceiling.  This should allow you to clear challenges like they're a breeze once you reach a certain level of skill.  It will just take a while to reach it.  I know I have lots of room for growth myself in the game.  It's a rewarding and "fair" sort of challenge for much of the game's trials, but the cup races are something else.  There is a high degree of rubber banding the AI demonstrates in this game, and that's going to bite you in some rather unfair ways from time to time there.

Overall, my opinion of this game has only gone up over the years.  From solid controls to excellent track design, this game felt like a natural evolution of what MK64 and DKR had started.  I only wish cart racers had continued in this vein, but sadly most challengers would fade away leaving only Mario Kart, and Nintendo never felt the need to develop unique challenges and story modes in the way Rare and Naughty Dog did.  It's a shame, since certain things like how powerups and boosting were handled were done both uniquely and in ways that better added to a player's flexibility in this one.  (Maybe one day I'll finally sit down with Sonic All Star Racing and give that a try.)  I highly recommend this game to anyone who passed over it as "just another Mario Kart clone".  It's that, yes, but so much more.]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=6767 Fri, 22 Aug 2014 04:43:42 +0000 A Black Falcon]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=6767
Mode options are only the basics: two player splitscreen, single race, championship mode, or options (control settings and audio levels). You can also save here, but NOT during a championship; that you have to complete without turning the system off, annoyingly. You have infinite continues, but can't save your current circuit. Unfortunate. It does unlock tracks as a starting point as you reach them, but doesn't save your current game. Once you start a race, you'll notice how long the load times are in this game. As fitting with the general dated nature of the game, the loading times in the game are far longer than they should be, and are definitely irritating. Before each race there's an untranslated line in spoken Japanese about the upcoming track. Lazy localization work there. In championships, you progress to the next race by finishing at least third in each race, and though there are only seven racers in each race, this is a challenge. Championship mode doesn't really have an ending at the end, just credits with a generic (same for all characters) CG background. Disappointing! I was hoping for more. At least completing tracks does unlock them, so in the future you can start a circuit from any of the tracks. Still, with a game as frustrating as this one, I was hoping for better when I finally managed to beat it,and yes, finishing it was an effort. I'm not sure if it was worth it or not, but I completed it anyway, once at least; I'm not sure if I will again. Anyway, once choosing a mode, you then choose a racer. You start out with seven options, all stereotypical anime-kart-racing characters. There are four more unlockable ones, though I have no idea how to do that. The character stats do matter -- larger racers really do control differently from smaller ones, for example. So that's good, at least.

Again like Ridge Racer, this is a catchup-centric racing game, not one where all the racers start at the starting line together. You start at the start line with two other racers right in front of you, but the other four opponents start far ahead, just like in classic Ridge Racer games. This way there are fewer sprites to render at once! Catching up to the leading four requires good play and practice. You can get a fast start with proper timing of the accelerator button. Hold the accelerator from the moment the game finally finishes loading, let go just as "1" appears on the screen, and then hit the accelerator again when the race starts. This should start you at top speed right out of the gate, an extremely useful advantage. Learn the timing for this. I often would just restart a race if I messed it up and spun out instead of got the turbo, because that delay would be hard to make up for. One of your two rivals at the line quickly falls behind in last, but the other one tracks you and is your toughest opponent. In each game you'll have one other racer as your rival throughout the circuit, but who it is is different each time. This racer is also the one who appears before races, giving you some little hints. The text is always the same, though; only the racer pictured changes. I never finished in the top three in a race on my first try, it always required spending time memorizing the track, because you need to learn the turns -- which should you drift on? Drifting is faster than slowing down, of course, but mess up and you might need to restart the race; you cannot make many mistakes and do well. I finished the game, but I don't know if I ever even SAW the person in first place; I mostly moved on with third-place finishes, and a few in second. Winning would require even more practice, and this game is not anywhere near fun enough to be worth it.

During the race, your primary task is to memorize the course. Most of the seven tracks are too narrow, and so not hitting the walls is frustratingly difficult. As I will describe, walls are a major threat in this game. Sort of like Mario Kart on the SNES, tracks are entirely flat; this game does not have any hills on the courses. It's quite dated in that respect. Each track has a different setting, at least, mostly in kart racer-style environments. My favorite was the last track, which was inspired by Rainbow Road, of course; the gameplay may not be Mario Kart at all, but the graphical design very much is. The last track is fun because it's wider than the others. It has no walls, but the wider size makes it more manageable. Tracks are littered with Turbo powerups, each of which gives you a different amount of turbo. Once you build up enough, you can use a turbo. You can't store more than one at a time, but once used turbos last a reasonably long time and significantly increase your speed. Drifting and turbos are the keys here, but both must be PERFECTLY timed, because one of the games' most frusrating design choices: if you ever touch a wall, you spin out and lose almost all of your speed. Touch one wall and you lose a LOT of time, and likely a position or two as well. So, turbos can only be used in very specific locations! This is really a key point: you need to learn where you can use turbos. Some tracks mark spots where you should use turbo with signs that say "Turbo" on them, but also try to find other spots you can use turbos. Some tracks have them. The hardest thing in this game would be trying to make corners while at turbo speeds. So far at least, I've found that near-impossible; you can barely turn normally while in turbo, and while you can drift, you'll need to start the drift even earlier in order to make it at high speeds. And of course, if you mistime it, you'll hit the wall and waste the whole effort.

On the whole, Extreme Go-Kart Racing is a pretty awful game. The description above may not sound too bad, but the controls are not very good. Car control is touchy, and getting used to the controls takes time and doesn't work as well as it should. Drifting is also frustrating because of how narrow most of the tracks are; it's far, far too easy to hit the sides over and over. Also, of course, I haven't mentioned the graphics much yet, and that's because they are bad. This game has some of the worst polygon-seam-popping issues you'll find! Sure, all PS1 games have polygon issues, because the hardware does not have perspective correction, but better games try to cover over the problem. This game, however, doesn't do a thing, and so visible broken polygon seams can, and often do, appear between every single polygon in this game. The polygon count is low, too, and characters are sprites, not polygons. Environments don't have much to them. The game doesn't have popup, as you can see to the horizon, but with environments this low on detail, that isn't saying very much. The PS1 can do far better than this. When combined with the frustrating controls and lacking featureset, this game is not very good at all. With practice you can get better at the game, but the question is, is it worth it? No, it probably isn't. On the other hand though, the music is nice. Music does play during races, and it's reasonably catchy stuff. I didn't remember any of it afterwards, but none of it was bad either. Decent work.

So, overall, this is a pretty awful game, and I wouldn't recommend playing it, but it was just playable enough that I stuck with it to the end despite how poor and frustrating a game it is. Extreme Go-Kart Racing is a budget game, clearly made on a miniscule budget. This game appears to be a cute kart racing game at first glance, but it's really more like Ridge Racer crossed with Power Drift, or something like that. Unfortunately, being different doesn't mean that it's any good, of course. With only seven short tracks, few options, long load times, no analog controls (in the US version anyway) in a game that needs them, frustrating crashes whenever you touch almost anything, and not-so-good gameplay, this game won't last long. On the positive side the music is okay, graphics are decent (for something from years before its release), character designs are solidly drawn and amusing, you do eventually start to get used to the poor controls with practice, and the game is playable and definitely requires some skill to master. Just finishing a circuit with all third-place finishes won't get you everything in the game, either; and even though I finished the circuit and saw the credits, it didn't unlock any of the four unlockable characters. My only guess is that you have to get first (or maybe second) place finishes in most or all races? I don't know; the manual doesn't explain it, and despite searching I don't see anything about it online. But still, even if I almost never finished above third, I did complete the championship and see the credits, so that counts as a win! This game was hard; each track took a lot of practice. You basically have to be near-perfect in order to actually finish in the top three, and I almost never managed to even SEE the person in first. Perfect those perfectly-executed drifts! Or don't bother, and pass on this subpar budget game. That would probably be the better approach. This game had potential, but it was not realized. 6.8/10 (D+).

Here is a video of the game. It's running in an emulator, so the graphics are better than on a real system, but it's the only video of the game I can find. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clR2aGwjm2M]]>
Mode options are only the basics: two player splitscreen, single race, championship mode, or options (control settings and audio levels). You can also save here, but NOT during a championship; that you have to complete without turning the system off, annoyingly. You have infinite continues, but can't save your current circuit. Unfortunate. It does unlock tracks as a starting point as you reach them, but doesn't save your current game. Once you start a race, you'll notice how long the load times are in this game. As fitting with the general dated nature of the game, the loading times in the game are far longer than they should be, and are definitely irritating. Before each race there's an untranslated line in spoken Japanese about the upcoming track. Lazy localization work there. In championships, you progress to the next race by finishing at least third in each race, and though there are only seven racers in each race, this is a challenge. Championship mode doesn't really have an ending at the end, just credits with a generic (same for all characters) CG background. Disappointing! I was hoping for more. At least completing tracks does unlock them, so in the future you can start a circuit from any of the tracks. Still, with a game as frustrating as this one, I was hoping for better when I finally managed to beat it,and yes, finishing it was an effort. I'm not sure if it was worth it or not, but I completed it anyway, once at least; I'm not sure if I will again. Anyway, once choosing a mode, you then choose a racer. You start out with seven options, all stereotypical anime-kart-racing characters. There are four more unlockable ones, though I have no idea how to do that. The character stats do matter -- larger racers really do control differently from smaller ones, for example. So that's good, at least.

Again like Ridge Racer, this is a catchup-centric racing game, not one where all the racers start at the starting line together. You start at the start line with two other racers right in front of you, but the other four opponents start far ahead, just like in classic Ridge Racer games. This way there are fewer sprites to render at once! Catching up to the leading four requires good play and practice. You can get a fast start with proper timing of the accelerator button. Hold the accelerator from the moment the game finally finishes loading, let go just as "1" appears on the screen, and then hit the accelerator again when the race starts. This should start you at top speed right out of the gate, an extremely useful advantage. Learn the timing for this. I often would just restart a race if I messed it up and spun out instead of got the turbo, because that delay would be hard to make up for. One of your two rivals at the line quickly falls behind in last, but the other one tracks you and is your toughest opponent. In each game you'll have one other racer as your rival throughout the circuit, but who it is is different each time. This racer is also the one who appears before races, giving you some little hints. The text is always the same, though; only the racer pictured changes. I never finished in the top three in a race on my first try, it always required spending time memorizing the track, because you need to learn the turns -- which should you drift on? Drifting is faster than slowing down, of course, but mess up and you might need to restart the race; you cannot make many mistakes and do well. I finished the game, but I don't know if I ever even SAW the person in first place; I mostly moved on with third-place finishes, and a few in second. Winning would require even more practice, and this game is not anywhere near fun enough to be worth it.

During the race, your primary task is to memorize the course. Most of the seven tracks are too narrow, and so not hitting the walls is frustratingly difficult. As I will describe, walls are a major threat in this game. Sort of like Mario Kart on the SNES, tracks are entirely flat; this game does not have any hills on the courses. It's quite dated in that respect. Each track has a different setting, at least, mostly in kart racer-style environments. My favorite was the last track, which was inspired by Rainbow Road, of course; the gameplay may not be Mario Kart at all, but the graphical design very much is. The last track is fun because it's wider than the others. It has no walls, but the wider size makes it more manageable. Tracks are littered with Turbo powerups, each of which gives you a different amount of turbo. Once you build up enough, you can use a turbo. You can't store more than one at a time, but once used turbos last a reasonably long time and significantly increase your speed. Drifting and turbos are the keys here, but both must be PERFECTLY timed, because one of the games' most frusrating design choices: if you ever touch a wall, you spin out and lose almost all of your speed. Touch one wall and you lose a LOT of time, and likely a position or two as well. So, turbos can only be used in very specific locations! This is really a key point: you need to learn where you can use turbos. Some tracks mark spots where you should use turbo with signs that say "Turbo" on them, but also try to find other spots you can use turbos. Some tracks have them. The hardest thing in this game would be trying to make corners while at turbo speeds. So far at least, I've found that near-impossible; you can barely turn normally while in turbo, and while you can drift, you'll need to start the drift even earlier in order to make it at high speeds. And of course, if you mistime it, you'll hit the wall and waste the whole effort.

On the whole, Extreme Go-Kart Racing is a pretty awful game. The description above may not sound too bad, but the controls are not very good. Car control is touchy, and getting used to the controls takes time and doesn't work as well as it should. Drifting is also frustrating because of how narrow most of the tracks are; it's far, far too easy to hit the sides over and over. Also, of course, I haven't mentioned the graphics much yet, and that's because they are bad. This game has some of the worst polygon-seam-popping issues you'll find! Sure, all PS1 games have polygon issues, because the hardware does not have perspective correction, but better games try to cover over the problem. This game, however, doesn't do a thing, and so visible broken polygon seams can, and often do, appear between every single polygon in this game. The polygon count is low, too, and characters are sprites, not polygons. Environments don't have much to them. The game doesn't have popup, as you can see to the horizon, but with environments this low on detail, that isn't saying very much. The PS1 can do far better than this. When combined with the frustrating controls and lacking featureset, this game is not very good at all. With practice you can get better at the game, but the question is, is it worth it? No, it probably isn't. On the other hand though, the music is nice. Music does play during races, and it's reasonably catchy stuff. I didn't remember any of it afterwards, but none of it was bad either. Decent work.

So, overall, this is a pretty awful game, and I wouldn't recommend playing it, but it was just playable enough that I stuck with it to the end despite how poor and frustrating a game it is. Extreme Go-Kart Racing is a budget game, clearly made on a miniscule budget. This game appears to be a cute kart racing game at first glance, but it's really more like Ridge Racer crossed with Power Drift, or something like that. Unfortunately, being different doesn't mean that it's any good, of course. With only seven short tracks, few options, long load times, no analog controls (in the US version anyway) in a game that needs them, frustrating crashes whenever you touch almost anything, and not-so-good gameplay, this game won't last long. On the positive side the music is okay, graphics are decent (for something from years before its release), character designs are solidly drawn and amusing, you do eventually start to get used to the poor controls with practice, and the game is playable and definitely requires some skill to master. Just finishing a circuit with all third-place finishes won't get you everything in the game, either; and even though I finished the circuit and saw the credits, it didn't unlock any of the four unlockable characters. My only guess is that you have to get first (or maybe second) place finishes in most or all races? I don't know; the manual doesn't explain it, and despite searching I don't see anything about it online. But still, even if I almost never finished above third, I did complete the championship and see the credits, so that counts as a win! This game was hard; each track took a lot of practice. You basically have to be near-perfect in order to actually finish in the top three, and I almost never managed to even SEE the person in first. Perfect those perfectly-executed drifts! Or don't bother, and pass on this subpar budget game. That would probably be the better approach. This game had potential, but it was not realized. 6.8/10 (D+).

Here is a video of the game. It's running in an emulator, so the graphics are better than on a real system, but it's the only video of the game I can find. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clR2aGwjm2M]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=348 Wed, 26 Feb 2003 05:28:10 +0000 Weltall]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=348 Silent Hill

The survival horror genre is a relatively new one in comparison to most others. For the longest time the genre was defined by the one game series in it that was, and still is the most popular: Resident Evil. But in 1999 Konami released, to little fanfare, a survival horror game of their own. Titled Silent Hill, the game features a John Q. Public protagonist, a 32-year old novelist by the name of Harry Mason. As Harry, you must search the town of Silent Hill for your missing daughter Cheryl... among other things. Unlike Resident Evil, Silent Hill is a true horror to behold, brimming with creativity, visceral disgust, and surreal imagery that will last with you long after you shut the game off. You'll see less "Boo!" horror as opposed to suspensful, drawn-out, mind game terror, to the point where even though you know what's around that dark corner and you're ready for it, you fear it anyway.

Silent Hill is a resort town of waning popularity that thrives on the tourism industry. Harry and Cheryl plan to vacation there in the summer, when just outside of the town Harry crashes his Jeep after nearly hitting what appears to be a young woman crossing the street. When he awakens, Cheryl is gone, the summer atmosphere has somehow been replaced by overcast fog, and snow. Tracking Cheryl, he quickly is exposed to the horrible dark side of Silent Hill, where normal surroundings are replaced with bloody, rusty and gory counterparts, where crucified bodies decorate the walls and the streets are mere chain fences placed over bottomless pits. It is a hell which he will be forced to traverse many times in his hunt for Cheryl, along with the terrible plans of an evil cult and a demon angel's resurrection.

Gameplay

Veterans of Resident Evil will notice a few differences and many similarities. Harry moves much like any RE character, insofar as turning and firing your weapons. Firing? Well, not all of your weapons will do so. You control three different guns in the game, the standard handgun, the shotgun, and the hunting rifle. You will also make use of many melee weapons, such as a kitchen knife, steel pipe, and the fun emergency hammer. Obviously the guns are best used on enemies in the distance, however, ammo for them is scarce. One neat feature that the handgun and shotgun allow is the ability to aim, and fire, while you walk. Reversing while firing is a good way to avoid taking hits. Just be careful about what may be behind you...

A neat feature in this game is also the most useful: The radio. In the beginning of the game you will pick up this most useful device that will help you gauge the proximity of enemies to you, via white noise and static. This tool is your best friend in the game, and while you have the option to turn it off, you must have balls of steel to do so.

The other useful item you make use of is the pocket flashlight. Many places in Silent Hill are enveloped in total darkness, and the flashlight is the only way you will be able to see in it. You can also turn it on and off at will, though there is a reason to do so for the light: It attracts monsters like a magnet. Turning the light off makes it possible to sneak past an enemy without being detected... just be sure not to brush them in passing, lest they be alerted anyhow.

And, thankfully unlike Resident Evil, you have both an unlimited inventory capacity, and you can save anywhere you find a notepad, without having to collect items to do so.

Graphics

This is the low-point of the game. Unfortunately the game was simply too ambitious for the aging PlayStation, and it shows. The framerate is pretty laggy and the graphics are pixelated. There is loads of detail however, and you have an entire town to see. Silent Hill 2 on PS2 and XBox show what the programmers definitely were trying for, a game of this size with beautiful graphics and smooth framerate.

Objects are detailed pretty nicely, though they tend to be blocky as the game pushes the PlayStation's polygon power to it's limits. Enemy designs are nice, you have the pterodactyls and the skinned dogs which look okay, and then you have the evil nurses and doctors of Alchemilla Hospital which look better, and then you have the most terrifying monster in any game, the demon children. These monsters are small children with stubby legs and evil smiles on their faces, they cry and giggle when they see you... and they brandish knives. They also like to use group tactics, as do many monsters in this game. It's not the monsters though, that inspire the true visual effect of Silent Hill, however. It's the enviroments, especially when the dark Silent Hill takes over. The snow changes to rain, whatever maps you have are erased, and enemies become far deadlier in this evil doppelganger of Silent Hill, and it is home to some of the most terrible imagery ever seen in a video game.

The FMV in the game is also very well done, definitely the best of it's day, and is even more impressive when you consider it was all done by a single person!

Sound

The game opens with a song played with a mandolin and distortion guitar, it is very similar to the theme of Twin Peaks. the David Lynch television show that shares a few more subtle similarities to the game. The opening title is shared with FMV clips from the game (some of which you'll never see in the game).

And that's about half of the music you'll hear in the entire game.

Silent Hill does not feature much music at all. In the lighter portions of the game you'll hear nothing but lonely wind and the sounds of your own feet (and, of course, the static of the radio). When Dark Silent Hill comes out however, you're subjected to a bevy of disturbing ambience, mechanical sounds played in rythym, hydraulics, things of that nature. It does not do justice to explain in words, but the ambient noise you hear in DSH will provide you with whatever terror your eyes do not provide. And on top of that, you'll learn to cringe when the radio starts to sound, because it means trouble is nearby.

In various cutscenes and events you will hear actual music, which tends to be pieces much like the opening theme, using the shimmering guitar and piano. There is very little musical track in the game, but it is all appropriate, and well done.

Longetivity
An experienced player can likely tackle this game in 9-10 hours. Despite the rather short gameplay time, there are a whopping five endings you can get in the game, four of them based upon your actions in two particular parts of the game, and a secret fifth ending based on using a special item in certain areas. Certain endings also net you secret items for future playthroughs, so it's worth checking out all five.

Pros
+Excellent storyline
+Definitely more deserving of the title "survival horror" than any other game
+Better gameplay and controls than most in the genre

Cons
-Average graphics
-Framerate is choppy and uneven at times

Final Word
This game, in my opinion, is better than any other in it's genre. If it doesn't outright scare you, it WILL disturb you, and if you like games of this ilk, you'll enjoy every minute of it. Sometimes some of the puzzles and tasks seem strange, but in the insane town of Silent Hill, everything is done for a reason. The storyline takes a little understanding, but it's definitely one of the best in the genre. Overall, this game is a true classic and one of the PlayStation's truly great games.

Overall: 9.7/10]]> Silent Hill

The survival horror genre is a relatively new one in comparison to most others. For the longest time the genre was defined by the one game series in it that was, and still is the most popular: Resident Evil. But in 1999 Konami released, to little fanfare, a survival horror game of their own. Titled Silent Hill, the game features a John Q. Public protagonist, a 32-year old novelist by the name of Harry Mason. As Harry, you must search the town of Silent Hill for your missing daughter Cheryl... among other things. Unlike Resident Evil, Silent Hill is a true horror to behold, brimming with creativity, visceral disgust, and surreal imagery that will last with you long after you shut the game off. You'll see less "Boo!" horror as opposed to suspensful, drawn-out, mind game terror, to the point where even though you know what's around that dark corner and you're ready for it, you fear it anyway.

Silent Hill is a resort town of waning popularity that thrives on the tourism industry. Harry and Cheryl plan to vacation there in the summer, when just outside of the town Harry crashes his Jeep after nearly hitting what appears to be a young woman crossing the street. When he awakens, Cheryl is gone, the summer atmosphere has somehow been replaced by overcast fog, and snow. Tracking Cheryl, he quickly is exposed to the horrible dark side of Silent Hill, where normal surroundings are replaced with bloody, rusty and gory counterparts, where crucified bodies decorate the walls and the streets are mere chain fences placed over bottomless pits. It is a hell which he will be forced to traverse many times in his hunt for Cheryl, along with the terrible plans of an evil cult and a demon angel's resurrection.

Gameplay

Veterans of Resident Evil will notice a few differences and many similarities. Harry moves much like any RE character, insofar as turning and firing your weapons. Firing? Well, not all of your weapons will do so. You control three different guns in the game, the standard handgun, the shotgun, and the hunting rifle. You will also make use of many melee weapons, such as a kitchen knife, steel pipe, and the fun emergency hammer. Obviously the guns are best used on enemies in the distance, however, ammo for them is scarce. One neat feature that the handgun and shotgun allow is the ability to aim, and fire, while you walk. Reversing while firing is a good way to avoid taking hits. Just be careful about what may be behind you...

A neat feature in this game is also the most useful: The radio. In the beginning of the game you will pick up this most useful device that will help you gauge the proximity of enemies to you, via white noise and static. This tool is your best friend in the game, and while you have the option to turn it off, you must have balls of steel to do so.

The other useful item you make use of is the pocket flashlight. Many places in Silent Hill are enveloped in total darkness, and the flashlight is the only way you will be able to see in it. You can also turn it on and off at will, though there is a reason to do so for the light: It attracts monsters like a magnet. Turning the light off makes it possible to sneak past an enemy without being detected... just be sure not to brush them in passing, lest they be alerted anyhow.

And, thankfully unlike Resident Evil, you have both an unlimited inventory capacity, and you can save anywhere you find a notepad, without having to collect items to do so.

Graphics

This is the low-point of the game. Unfortunately the game was simply too ambitious for the aging PlayStation, and it shows. The framerate is pretty laggy and the graphics are pixelated. There is loads of detail however, and you have an entire town to see. Silent Hill 2 on PS2 and XBox show what the programmers definitely were trying for, a game of this size with beautiful graphics and smooth framerate.

Objects are detailed pretty nicely, though they tend to be blocky as the game pushes the PlayStation's polygon power to it's limits. Enemy designs are nice, you have the pterodactyls and the skinned dogs which look okay, and then you have the evil nurses and doctors of Alchemilla Hospital which look better, and then you have the most terrifying monster in any game, the demon children. These monsters are small children with stubby legs and evil smiles on their faces, they cry and giggle when they see you... and they brandish knives. They also like to use group tactics, as do many monsters in this game. It's not the monsters though, that inspire the true visual effect of Silent Hill, however. It's the enviroments, especially when the dark Silent Hill takes over. The snow changes to rain, whatever maps you have are erased, and enemies become far deadlier in this evil doppelganger of Silent Hill, and it is home to some of the most terrible imagery ever seen in a video game.

The FMV in the game is also very well done, definitely the best of it's day, and is even more impressive when you consider it was all done by a single person!

Sound

The game opens with a song played with a mandolin and distortion guitar, it is very similar to the theme of Twin Peaks. the David Lynch television show that shares a few more subtle similarities to the game. The opening title is shared with FMV clips from the game (some of which you'll never see in the game).

And that's about half of the music you'll hear in the entire game.

Silent Hill does not feature much music at all. In the lighter portions of the game you'll hear nothing but lonely wind and the sounds of your own feet (and, of course, the static of the radio). When Dark Silent Hill comes out however, you're subjected to a bevy of disturbing ambience, mechanical sounds played in rythym, hydraulics, things of that nature. It does not do justice to explain in words, but the ambient noise you hear in DSH will provide you with whatever terror your eyes do not provide. And on top of that, you'll learn to cringe when the radio starts to sound, because it means trouble is nearby.

In various cutscenes and events you will hear actual music, which tends to be pieces much like the opening theme, using the shimmering guitar and piano. There is very little musical track in the game, but it is all appropriate, and well done.

Longetivity
An experienced player can likely tackle this game in 9-10 hours. Despite the rather short gameplay time, there are a whopping five endings you can get in the game, four of them based upon your actions in two particular parts of the game, and a secret fifth ending based on using a special item in certain areas. Certain endings also net you secret items for future playthroughs, so it's worth checking out all five.

Pros
+Excellent storyline
+Definitely more deserving of the title "survival horror" than any other game
+Better gameplay and controls than most in the genre

Cons
-Average graphics
-Framerate is choppy and uneven at times

Final Word
This game, in my opinion, is better than any other in it's genre. If it doesn't outright scare you, it WILL disturb you, and if you like games of this ilk, you'll enjoy every minute of it. Sometimes some of the puzzles and tasks seem strange, but in the insane town of Silent Hill, everything is done for a reason. The storyline takes a little understanding, but it's definitely one of the best in the genre. Overall, this game is a true classic and one of the PlayStation's truly great games.

Overall: 9.7/10]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=347 Wed, 26 Feb 2003 05:27:06 +0000 Weltall]]> https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php?tid=347 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The solitary Castlevania entry on the PlayStation is arguably the greatest in the series. In the previous game, Dracula X, the legendary vampire hunter Richter Belmont defeated Dracula in a fierce battle of power and will, which you have the fun of being able to play. After his great triumph, Richter and his sister-in-law Maria Renard, whose rescue was an objective in Dracula X, return to live in peace, now that the scourge of Dracula is gone... or is it? Four years later, Richter mysteriously vanishes. As Maria tracks him, she suddenly sees the legendary castle of Dracula appear again in front of her... but it is only supposed to appear once every 100 years, and yet here it is again, only four years later. Symphony of the Night features, instead of a Belmont lead character as in prior games, the son of Dracula himself, Alucard. With a markedly different look than his previous appearance (Alucard was one of the three support characters in Castlevania III, and looked like a traditional movie vampire as opposed to his current lithe body and long, silver hair), Alucard awakens from the sentence of eternal sleep he levied upon himself after defeating his father in the third game, for he senses the presence of Dracula once again. Armed to the teeth with some great weapons and armor, he storms the legendary Castlevania to investigate the appearance of the castle and put his father down again if need be.

Gameplay
Harkening back to the series' roots, SotN is a beatiful 2D sidescroller, set in a gigantic castle with nearly 2000 rooms in total. The game uses RPG stats to measure health, magic, gold, etc. Alucard can equip literally hundreds of different items to aid his quest, some purchased from the egnimatic Librarian, others found in secret crevices or from defeating enemies. He can also equip two items in his hands, one in each, which makes it easier to plan for dangerous encounters. Will you keep a shield in one hand for defense, or will you equip a sword for power and a knife for speed? There are tons of combinations, and finding the perfect one is part of the fun. With regard to combat, killing enemies nets you experience points, which ultimately raise your levels and stats. There are also many hidden potions which raise your HP and your MP scattered everywhere.

Alucard will also be able to cast various spells by performing certain button combinations. You can learn them by buying the required scrolls from the librarian... though that is not necessary if you already know the sequence. I personally found the magic to be a rather useless feature, with the exception of the neat Soul Steal spell, none of them really have an effect worth all the finger-dancing.

Last, there are a varied assortment of special items you will find on your quest, which give you various abilities, such as a double-jump, super-jump, and seeing your enemies' damage done when you strike. There are three special Soul orbs that allow you to shift your form into a bat, wolf, or mist, as well as various orbs that add abilities to those forms. These are the most important, as you must find them all to proceed at one point or another. Finally, there are the Familiars, friendly monsters that will follow you and aid you in various ways. Faerie will use healing items on you when your health wanes. The little demon can hit some switches you can't reach. The Bat is a good wingman for you when you become a bat yourself. The Ghost performs Soul Steal on nearby enemies, damaging them and healing you a bit. And finally, the Sword Familiar, the most useful, attacks enemies nearby, and when it reaches a certain level, can actually be wielded as a weapon itself! My only issue with the gameplay is that the bosses are just insultingly easy, and that's pretty disappointing. Fortunately, there is still ample challenge in actually getting to them.

The true fun of the game is finding every secret passage and room, and there are plenty of them. Of course, if you are diligent in finding these secrets, you will be able to find the alternate castle... a complete (and far more difficult) inversion of the real castle, which makes for an entirely new game after you clear the first! But it takes some careful searching to find!

Graphics
As far as 2D graphics go, they don't get better than this on PlayStation. Lush, colorful and large sprites dominate the action and are beatifully animated. Some boss monsters are simply gargantuan, one being FOUR TIMES the size of the screen! The backgrounds are similarly beautiful and extremely diverse and detailed, which makes for a very pleasing experience. The single nagging issue is slowdown when the screen gets crowded, but it's infrequent and you really won't care.

Sound
A truly great aural experience is an accurate description of the soundtrack in this game. Impressive tracks ranging from stunning tocattas, to baroque, to some more modern rock guitar, to orchestral, this game has it all. Sound effects are similarly decent. Where it goes wrong is the voice acting. With Metal Gear Solid still a year away from revolutionizing voice-acting in videogames, SotN unfortunately follows the times by having some truly apalling voicing, and worse still, there s a strange echo to it that makes it even harder to understand.

Longetivity
The game has four endings, but if you're good you can really experience all four in one playthrough. The endings you get are determined by the percentage of the game you complete, though there is no real reward for getting good endings... except for one. Getting one of the good endings unlocks Richter as a playable character! Now you can use him beyond the opening sequence, and the game is totally different with him. He cannot use items but he has his awesome whip and many of Alucard's special moves right from the start. It's really just a sidequest however, for there is no story attached to Richter and he cannot go in some places.

Final Word
This game is quite rare, but a good find if you're looking for perhaps the single best 2D Platformer on the PlayStation.

Overall: 8.9 / 10]]> Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The solitary Castlevania entry on the PlayStation is arguably the greatest in the series. In the previous game, Dracula X, the legendary vampire hunter Richter Belmont defeated Dracula in a fierce battle of power and will, which you have the fun of being able to play. After his great triumph, Richter and his sister-in-law Maria Renard, whose rescue was an objective in Dracula X, return to live in peace, now that the scourge of Dracula is gone... or is it? Four years later, Richter mysteriously vanishes. As Maria tracks him, she suddenly sees the legendary castle of Dracula appear again in front of her... but it is only supposed to appear once every 100 years, and yet here it is again, only four years later. Symphony of the Night features, instead of a Belmont lead character as in prior games, the son of Dracula himself, Alucard. With a markedly different look than his previous appearance (Alucard was one of the three support characters in Castlevania III, and looked like a traditional movie vampire as opposed to his current lithe body and long, silver hair), Alucard awakens from the sentence of eternal sleep he levied upon himself after defeating his father in the third game, for he senses the presence of Dracula once again. Armed to the teeth with some great weapons and armor, he storms the legendary Castlevania to investigate the appearance of the castle and put his father down again if need be.

Gameplay
Harkening back to the series' roots, SotN is a beatiful 2D sidescroller, set in a gigantic castle with nearly 2000 rooms in total. The game uses RPG stats to measure health, magic, gold, etc. Alucard can equip literally hundreds of different items to aid his quest, some purchased from the egnimatic Librarian, others found in secret crevices or from defeating enemies. He can also equip two items in his hands, one in each, which makes it easier to plan for dangerous encounters. Will you keep a shield in one hand for defense, or will you equip a sword for power and a knife for speed? There are tons of combinations, and finding the perfect one is part of the fun. With regard to combat, killing enemies nets you experience points, which ultimately raise your levels and stats. There are also many hidden potions which raise your HP and your MP scattered everywhere.

Alucard will also be able to cast various spells by performing certain button combinations. You can learn them by buying the required scrolls from the librarian... though that is not necessary if you already know the sequence. I personally found the magic to be a rather useless feature, with the exception of the neat Soul Steal spell, none of them really have an effect worth all the finger-dancing.

Last, there are a varied assortment of special items you will find on your quest, which give you various abilities, such as a double-jump, super-jump, and seeing your enemies' damage done when you strike. There are three special Soul orbs that allow you to shift your form into a bat, wolf, or mist, as well as various orbs that add abilities to those forms. These are the most important, as you must find them all to proceed at one point or another. Finally, there are the Familiars, friendly monsters that will follow you and aid you in various ways. Faerie will use healing items on you when your health wanes. The little demon can hit some switches you can't reach. The Bat is a good wingman for you when you become a bat yourself. The Ghost performs Soul Steal on nearby enemies, damaging them and healing you a bit. And finally, the Sword Familiar, the most useful, attacks enemies nearby, and when it reaches a certain level, can actually be wielded as a weapon itself! My only issue with the gameplay is that the bosses are just insultingly easy, and that's pretty disappointing. Fortunately, there is still ample challenge in actually getting to them.

The true fun of the game is finding every secret passage and room, and there are plenty of them. Of course, if you are diligent in finding these secrets, you will be able to find the alternate castle... a complete (and far more difficult) inversion of the real castle, which makes for an entirely new game after you clear the first! But it takes some careful searching to find!

Graphics
As far as 2D graphics go, they don't get better than this on PlayStation. Lush, colorful and large sprites dominate the action and are beatifully animated. Some boss monsters are simply gargantuan, one being FOUR TIMES the size of the screen! The backgrounds are similarly beautiful and extremely diverse and detailed, which makes for a very pleasing experience. The single nagging issue is slowdown when the screen gets crowded, but it's infrequent and you really won't care.

Sound
A truly great aural experience is an accurate description of the soundtrack in this game. Impressive tracks ranging from stunning tocattas, to baroque, to some more modern rock guitar, to orchestral, this game has it all. Sound effects are similarly decent. Where it goes wrong is the voice acting. With Metal Gear Solid still a year away from revolutionizing voice-acting in videogames, SotN unfortunately follows the times by having some truly apalling voicing, and worse still, there s a strange echo to it that makes it even harder to understand.

Longetivity
The game has four endings, but if you're good you can really experience all four in one playthrough. The endings you get are determined by the percentage of the game you complete, though there is no real reward for getting good endings... except for one. Getting one of the good endings unlocks Richter as a playable character! Now you can use him beyond the opening sequence, and the game is totally different with him. He cannot use items but he has his awesome whip and many of Alucard's special moves right from the start. It's really just a sidequest however, for there is no story attached to Richter and he cannot go in some places.

Final Word
This game is quite rare, but a good find if you're looking for perhaps the single best 2D Platformer on the PlayStation.

Overall: 8.9 / 10]]>