Street Racer (PS1) Quick Review
Had to get a racing game in for the week, so I figured why not try out the one I got in my most recent VGM box? Street Racer was a Mario Kart inspired style racing game, which also splashed in the element of beat-em-up games as well. It launched on SNES and Sega in 1994 and 1995 respectively, but the PS1 version didn't come out until 1997. The real question here though is can it live up to the original game that it pulled it's inspiration from and be an enjoyable game?
The Good
- Almost Familiar Characters. While this game has characters that are original and specific to itself, due to the animation style of the game, on first glance everything looks like it's pulled out of a Street Fighter game. Even the simple title of Street Racer makes you want to think that's what it is. In reality it's not, but this might come from the formula they used to make the game, combining racing and beat em up. It's almost like they took Super Mario Kart, spliced it together with Street Fighter, and this game was born of the two.
- Micro Mode. When you first go into the game, you can choose between two styles of racing : Normal and Micro. Normal places the camera behind your cart and you race around like usual. However, Micro mode brings it back to older style racing games on NES where it's an almost top-down view of the track (think RC Pro-Am). You don't get the visuals of the backgrounds of the tracks in Micro mode, but the style itself is a really cool throwback and looks amazing in the newer generation of graphics.
The Bad
- Simple Tracks. There's nothing complex to any of the racetracks, just a constant series of turns. Yes, it's a racing game, I know, but with a cartoony racing game, and the ability to dwell outside of reality for some features, only having left and right turns of varying degrees is a bit upsetting.
- Awkward Control Placement. The most important thing in a racing game (in my opinion) is controller placement, especially when you get to games that have some sort of turbo boost/power up system incorporated into them. The default set up in this game puts the X button as your acceleration and O as your turbo button. Now, granted you can button map to your will through the options menu, this default set-up is just weird. The point of a turbo boost is to go faster, and this set-up makes you give up a moment of your speed to get that extra boost.
Is it Worth it?
Street Racer is fun for a little bit, just long enough to make it through one of the cup variations, but in a long term look, this is a racing game you won't come back to all that often. The graphics look cool, like I mentioned earlier very Street Fighter inspired, but this game is missing a key "quirk" to it to get it over the hump and make it great. The beat em up element isn't really crucial to playing the game, it's just a little sidebar to the racing of the game. You can hunt this down for around $5 as a loose disc, just under $10 CIB, or a brand new still sealed copy is only going to cost you a little under $20. In the end, though, this one might just take up space in your collection and collect a lot of dust. Like I said, it's fun for a bit, but there are much better racing games out there on PS1 that are more deserving of your time.
The Good
- Almost Familiar Characters. While this game has characters that are original and specific to itself, due to the animation style of the game, on first glance everything looks like it's pulled out of a Street Fighter game. Even the simple title of Street Racer makes you want to think that's what it is. In reality it's not, but this might come from the formula they used to make the game, combining racing and beat em up. It's almost like they took Super Mario Kart, spliced it together with Street Fighter, and this game was born of the two.
- Micro Mode. When you first go into the game, you can choose between two styles of racing : Normal and Micro. Normal places the camera behind your cart and you race around like usual. However, Micro mode brings it back to older style racing games on NES where it's an almost top-down view of the track (think RC Pro-Am). You don't get the visuals of the backgrounds of the tracks in Micro mode, but the style itself is a really cool throwback and looks amazing in the newer generation of graphics.
The Bad
- Simple Tracks. There's nothing complex to any of the racetracks, just a constant series of turns. Yes, it's a racing game, I know, but with a cartoony racing game, and the ability to dwell outside of reality for some features, only having left and right turns of varying degrees is a bit upsetting.
- Awkward Control Placement. The most important thing in a racing game (in my opinion) is controller placement, especially when you get to games that have some sort of turbo boost/power up system incorporated into them. The default set up in this game puts the X button as your acceleration and O as your turbo button. Now, granted you can button map to your will through the options menu, this default set-up is just weird. The point of a turbo boost is to go faster, and this set-up makes you give up a moment of your speed to get that extra boost.
Is it Worth it?
Street Racer is fun for a little bit, just long enough to make it through one of the cup variations, but in a long term look, this is a racing game you won't come back to all that often. The graphics look cool, like I mentioned earlier very Street Fighter inspired, but this game is missing a key "quirk" to it to get it over the hump and make it great. The beat em up element isn't really crucial to playing the game, it's just a little sidebar to the racing of the game. You can hunt this down for around $5 as a loose disc, just under $10 CIB, or a brand new still sealed copy is only going to cost you a little under $20. In the end, though, this one might just take up space in your collection and collect a lot of dust. Like I said, it's fun for a bit, but there are much better racing games out there on PS1 that are more deserving of your time.
