Big unique arcade machines are their own exterior ‘attract modes’ — and Racer’s is all machine design: a big pod racer with throttle controls, it’s an inviting contraption to be sure.
The mechanics of the game also fit the context of use for this arcade simplicity — like many fast and frenzied future racers, it is a game of boost management and not expending your craft by over-performing or careening too fast through the turns. It has a sharp minimally used mechanic too, turning the craft to either side to fit through narrow enclaves.
The game doesn’t expand mechanically, so much as the levels become longer and more narrow as they go along. There is some rubber-banding but if you’re really ahead or really behind any given race is really over already, Mario Kart rules may not apply.
This leaves a minimal risk/reward or whether you’ll boost through every straightaway or create your own opportunities with varied cut-away hidden paths.
There is enough invention in the crafts to give the game its own identity among Wipeouts and F-Zeros but where it lacks imagination is in the cast of pod racers. The vehicle designs are nicely differentiated but it really feels like you can just choose between Anakin and whatever shape of Alien you want. In this way, it’s a very slight and limited game, despite crafts having differentials along several levels from their acceleration to their air breaking.
It all moves fast enough. It does need a few more tricks and to use more the ones it has. Because I’ve played it a handful of times, at arcades and on Dreamcast, I spent about 95% of the game unaware of other racers, which sunk a few of my earlier memories of it being nicely competitive.
Still, the tracks express their themes well. There’s everything you get in a racer. Don’t laugh but there’s even a beach course. These use Star Wars thematics as track and background details, to useful enough effect.
The game was a fun outside release when licensed games used to also often be surprise non-sequiturs to their main branches of games. It suits the bill of advertising one of Phantom Menace’s fun new features and toys they would have to sell, but your mileage may very on if the play and design has really held up all these years.
The mechanics of the game also fit the context of use for this arcade simplicity — like many fast and frenzied future racers, it is a game of boost management and not expending your craft by over-performing or careening too fast through the turns. It has a sharp minimally used mechanic too, turning the craft to either side to fit through narrow enclaves.
The game doesn’t expand mechanically, so much as the levels become longer and more narrow as they go along. There is some rubber-banding but if you’re really ahead or really behind any given race is really over already, Mario Kart rules may not apply.
This leaves a minimal risk/reward or whether you’ll boost through every straightaway or create your own opportunities with varied cut-away hidden paths.
There is enough invention in the crafts to give the game its own identity among Wipeouts and F-Zeros but where it lacks imagination is in the cast of pod racers. The vehicle designs are nicely differentiated but it really feels like you can just choose between Anakin and whatever shape of Alien you want. In this way, it’s a very slight and limited game, despite crafts having differentials along several levels from their acceleration to their air breaking.
It all moves fast enough. It does need a few more tricks and to use more the ones it has. Because I’ve played it a handful of times, at arcades and on Dreamcast, I spent about 95% of the game unaware of other racers, which sunk a few of my earlier memories of it being nicely competitive.
Still, the tracks express their themes well. There’s everything you get in a racer. Don’t laugh but there’s even a beach course. These use Star Wars thematics as track and background details, to useful enough effect.
The game was a fun outside release when licensed games used to also often be surprise non-sequiturs to their main branches of games. It suits the bill of advertising one of Phantom Menace’s fun new features and toys they would have to sell, but your mileage may very on if the play and design has really held up all these years.