SHORT REVIEW: GALE RACER for Saturn
Taizo Shiozaki
This is a short review of a just-released car racing title called
GALE RACER, for Saturn.
After being very impressed with my Saturn + Virtua Fighter for a week now,
I've decided to get another title, a car racing game called GALE RACER,
just released by Sega. I bought it today where I've bought my Saturn,
and the price there was about 5,600 YEN.
GALE RACER is the Saturn version of "Rad Mobile", an arcade game that
created expectable stir in local video arcade two years ago. Unlike DAYTONA
USA or RIDGERACER that concentrates on reallife 3-D rendered graphics, this
game can be described as an oldfashion Drive-towards-the-horizon kind,
much like Sega's OUTRUN or Atari's POLE POSITION ( with first-person
perspective).
The concept of this game is to drive a customized sportscar (Rad Mobile),
across the USA (from LA to NY). Between those two cities you must bypass major
states and cities (e.g. LasVegas, Columbus etc.) within a limited amount of
time. You must pass through civilian cars and trucks, and also some of your
competing Rad Mobiles. In some areas you must run through night, rain, cliffs,
steep curves, railroads etc. If you beat the time limit within each area, you
are allowed to challenge the next.
You control your car via Saturn's 6-button JoyPad for steering, brakes,
accel, wipers, front lights, and horns. When it rains you may use the wipers,
and when it's night you can turn-on the front lights for a better sight. Your
car has 3 gauges on the dashboard including the speedometer, although you
really won't need it since your speed (shown in Kilometers per Hour) will be
displayed in digital numbers at lower-right side of your screen.
The graphics are semi-3D, meaning not much of a rendered polygons. Not
much of a difference compared to OUTRUN, and the graphic resolution is
jaggy, maybe worse than some old-VGA games. While you drive, the background
music plays (most of them being hardrock) from CD and you may select your
favorite themes from the list while you drive. You may also drive against
your friend in V.S. mode, first player's screen on upper half, other being
on lower half of the screen.
So, enough of these craps. The conclusion is, "Don't buy GALE RACER".
This was one of the worst arcade-conversion I've ever seen in my entire life.
Although the sound effects and musics are good, the graphics are very poor,
the game concept is out-dated, and the gameplay is dead. This game can
compete Atari 2600's ENDURO, but nothing else. If you want to play GALE RACER
on Saturn, I suggest Virtua Racing for Genesis.
This really was a bad job done by Sega.
My rating for GALE RACER is: B+ for sound, D+ for graphics, F for playablity.
Taizo Shiozaki from Tokyo 1:00am
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TAIZO SHIOZAKI
OCCUPATION: Stock-broker of Daiwa Securities
PHONE(HOME): +81-0424-95-3534 (KIYOSE CITY, TOKYO, JAPAN)
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INTERNET: ta...@jamiga.iijnet.or.jp
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Jer Horwitz
>
> This is a short review of a just-released car racing title called
>GALE RACER, for Saturn.
>
> So, enough of these craps. The conclusion is, "Don't buy GALE RACER".
>This was one of the worst arcade-conversion I've ever seen in my entire life.
>Although the sound effects and musics are good, the graphics are very poor,
>the game concept is out-dated, and the gameplay is dead. This game can
>compete Atari 2600's ENDURO, but nothing else. If you want to play GALE RACER
>on Saturn, I suggest Virtua Racing for Genesis.
> This really was a bad job done by Sega.
It's horrible to hear that yet another good Sega driving game was butchered
in conversion. I haven't played Gale Racer, but I loved Rad Mobile when it was
new in the arcades... to hear that they screwed up a several years old driving
port with simple scaling bitmaps just seems ridiculous.
Are the graphics truly poor in overall quality, or are they just limited in
the same way the arcade game was -- which was advanced for the time, but now
quite outdated in terms of artistic technique?
Also, do you have any feeling for how the rainy stages look in comparison to
the arcade game? It was a really cool effect on the System 32 hardware...
- Jer Horwitz
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[Disclaimer: Views expressed above aren't necessarily those of my employers.]