Impact Racing (Saturn)

Impact Racing review

Game: Impact Racing
Platform: Saturn
Genre: Unknown
Developer: Unknown

Reader review by pickhut

February 04, 2007

Impact Racing could have turned out to be a decent, combat racing title. Yes, decent. Unfortunately, it fails because it's too demanding at what it tries to do. The concept's interesting: make everything revolve around destroying cars. Need weapons? Destroy a car. Extra time? Destroy a car. Health? Car go boom. It really doesn't sound like much of a big deal, and it's not at the beginning. So, for the first two or so levels, your main concentration goes to making it to the bonus stages for a chance at winning a handy upgrade for your car. And you make it there by, of course, destroying a set number of cars.

Now, fast forward to around the third or fourth level, and that's where things start to get really annoying. Your car has a few upgrades that makes destroying cars much easier, but so do your opponents, and they're pretty aggressive about it as well. This eventually triggers a typical racing scenario in IR. You really can't go no more than five seconds without being attacked by half a dozen mines, get bumped from behind by a car, dodge trails of fire, and even some missiles. Dodging won't be easy, because the track is so narrow that you'll end up bumping into the sides every two seconds.

This brings you to your energy, or lack of it. With all the hits your vehicle is taking, you're gonna need to pick up some health from the cars that's destroying you. Of course, you're gonna have to waste a lot of your ammunition on your opponents in a desperate attempt to get some. Unfortunately for you, time is also running low at the moment, so, every time you destroy a vehicle, instead of receiving a health pack, you end up getting a time pack. Well, if you can catch it as you zoom towards it at 190 mph, that is. If not, then, well, that just leaves you with a defenseless car on the verge of blowing up, unless the time runs out before that happens.

Welcome to Impact Racing.

To make matters worse, there's a total of 13 tracks of this crap. And you know what? There's only three actual tracks, with slight variations (you get to drive at night! WOW!) as you repeat them over and over again. I've only described the gameplay aspects so far, IR assaults you on the sound and visual fronts as well. For the entire game, all you'll ever hear is a ton of horrible sounding techno and dance music. If for some insane reason you end up playing this title, turn off the music before you start the game. It's a shame you can't do the same for the graphics. One thing I'll give the horrible gameplay credit for, it keeps you too busy to even notice how butt-ugly the visuals are at first. Sadly, that's probably the only great thing about Impact Racing.


Rating: 3/10


More Reviews by pickhut
Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (Genesis)
Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (Genesis)
Coming off the heels of Revenge of Shinobi, a highly-praised game during the Genesis' launch year, was Shadow Dancer, a follow-up that Revenge fans weren...
Darkest of Days (Xbox 360)
Darkest of Days (Xbox 360)
Darkest of Days isn't going to win any awards for being one of the prettiest games on the Xbox 360, as it's a 2009 title that looks like an indie-made So...
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (NES)
Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (NES)
"THE GREATEST MARTIAL ARTS ADVENTURE SERIES EVER!" - NES Box Cover


Feedback

If you enjoyed this Impact Racing review, you're encouraged to leave feedback and talk about it with members of the site's community. You don't even need an HonestGamers account to get involved in the discussion. Please remember to keep your comments respectful and on-topic or they may be deleted by a moderator. Thank you for your understanding!

comments powered by Disqus


Info | Help | Privacy Policy | Contact | Advertise | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998-2013 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Impact Racing is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Impact Racing, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.

Follow Us