 |
Impact Racing (Saturn) review"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 fo..." |
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.
 |  |  | | |
 |
Community review by pickhut (February 03, 2007)
There isn't an Arcade Archives port of Double Dragon 3. This is probably the wisest decision Hamster has made. |
|
More Reviews by pickhut [+]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you enjoyed this Impact Racing review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!
You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.
Policies/Ethics | Contact | Advertise | Sponsor Site | Sponsor Guide | Links
© 1998-2018 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. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.
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. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.