Im late, im late, for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye, im late im late im late! Meh, youre accustomed to it by now, im sure youll manage. In light of my inadherence to my own schedule, ill make it a quickie this week. Star Wars Racer was released as a tie in to the much lamented first entry of the Prequel Trilogy, Episode I The Phantom Menace. And one thing that can be said about TPMs tie-ins, some of them were really quite good. Maybe not groundbreaking, but certainly worth a play. Weve already reviewed the Action Adventure RPG Playstation game of TPM, and here we have a game that was arguably on par, if not better, for its surprising originality. We can all agree that, the glistening jewel amid the undigested turd that was George Lucas sophomore trilogy, was the Boonta Eve Podrace. It may have jarred haltingly against the rushed out pace and the political struggle theme of the rest of the movie, but had the film merely been centred around Podraces, it might have carried itself well. Think Rush, with aliens. Well Star Wars Racer was your chance to live out that iconic race for yourself. It played like an arcade racer for the space age. Ridge Racer at lightspeed! (disclaimer: I am aware Podracers do not incorporate Hyperdrive Generators...). And not only were you able to play as Little Ani (I say that like its a treat or privilege), but a whole pixelated host of other barely explored racers, recognisable from the aforementioned sequence as well, on a host of other courses on other worlds, which in turn fleshes out the practice as an established Galactic sport within the canon (going to have to stop using that word now, seeing as Canon is Legend, and what is now canon is Disneys ignorant domain). You could even unlock the orange gargantuan of Sebulbas Pod, complete with side-mounted vent ports to demolish you opponents machines with greater ease. All in all, a better game than the film that spawned it. Much like Revenge of The Sith for Xbox/PS2. But thats a another tale for...probably next time, actually. So, my thoughts on Racer? I had great fun, and still do on an emulated N64 version on my laptop. Very cathartic fun, none of the necessity of bogging oneself down as in more story-driven games. Which usually I enjoy, but there always had to be a single case for the alternative. And it really would take Star-Wars-ifying Racing games for me to get any enjoyment out of the genre, Gran Turismo is my own personal vision of Hell. Your thoughts? Has it won the race by a furlong, or is just exhausting a lot of very, very hot air? Let me know down below. Gonna give you a treat next week, in line with my proposal to deviate from format. Watch this space. A giant of Star Wars lore is coming. Master Ash MTFBWU
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 21:33:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015