A slightly flawed masterpiece. (Metropolis Street Racer (DC))

Member Name: pooky

Product:	Metropolis Street Racer (DC)
Date:	11/12/00 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wonderful graphics, superb handling, massive game and original concept.

Disadvantages: Some irritating slowdown, unresponsive two player mode, flawed gameplay and currently contains bugs.

For anyone who hasn't heard about Metropolis Street Racer (MSR) before now, it represents the biggest leap in videogame arcade racers since Gran Turismo on the Playstation and Ridge racer before that. Remember how you felt the first time you saw those games running? Well, be prepared to be stunned in a similar manner as you plug in and play a videogame with it's eye firmly on the title of 'Best home console racer'.

All the usual racer options are present and correct including 'Quick race', 'Time trials', a two player mode and the jewel in the crown that is the 'Street Racing' mode. This contains 25 chapters of increasing difficulty, each composed of ten challenges.

These challenges consist of a variety of events including 'Hotlap' whereby in a set number of laps you must complete at least one lap in a certain time, 'Street Race' in which you compete against 3 to 5 other vehicles, 'One on One' a race between you and a single other car and 'Championship' in which two or more races are strung together and you compete for points (ten points for a win etc). To beging with only a handful are unlocked but as you gain more and more Kudos they open up.

Kudos? I here you cry. Well, the crux of MSR's gameplay is a Kudos system whereby you gain Kudos points for certain things and lose points for others. For example if you powerslide round a corner using the handbrake you'll gain loads of Kudos. If you overtake stylishly you will also gain points. But if you bang into a wall or a competitor you will lose points. At the end of the race these points are totalled to give your Kudos rating for that race.

You can also attempt to gain more Kudos for a race by gambling. For example, if you need to gain 14 points in a championship to pass then you can raise this to twenty points before competing. This makes your job that much harder but should you manage you'll be ha
ndsomely rewarded. In 'Hotlap' you can lower the time limit for performing the lap, again making the challenge harder and in 'One on One' you can give your opponant a head start. Finally, every 1000 Kudos points gained gets you a Joker which can be played before a race and will double your Kudos for that race whether it be positive or negative! The key point to note is that only your last attempt counts. So you perform a storming race but crash a few times. Can you do better, is it worth the risk or will you lose it all.


It's a novel system and full of potential but MSR doesn't quite pull it off. The trouble is that you get far more Kudos for powersliding than you can ever hope to achieve through the making of challenges difficult by reducing expected lap times, increasing necessary championship points etc. This leads to a situation whereby instead of even trying to drive particularly fast around the track you make the challenge very easy. Bad news for all that Kudos you would have gained for performing the more difficult task. But instead this leaves you free to perform powerslides around every corner without having to worry about the lost time they are causing you. Now you might think that I am being picky so I will give you a few numbers. The chapter needs about 3000 Kudos points to be completed. If you make the challenge very difficult and complete it you might get 200 Kudos points. Lose these by making the challenge easy but powersliding and expect somewhere in the region of 1000-2000 Kudos points. Couple this with the joker and you can gain 2000-4000 Kudos points for the first race of the chapter, immediately opening up the whole chapter. And remember that a new joker is given every 1000 Kudos. So the one you used is immediately replaced.

This ease of opening up chapters means that you can stop worrying about how well you drive at all, and indeed how many Kudos points you get because it is so easy to get more at
any required time. I am currently on chapter 10 but I have opened up all the chapters up to 21. This surely is not how the system was intended to be used and is a major flaw.

The Graphics of the game are unsurpassed in any racer currently on the market. The three cities in which MSR takes place (London, San Francisco and Tokyo) are recreated exactly, from roads and their markings right down to the position of phone boxes and telephone lines. They are incredibly detailed and races are in real time so during the day London races will be in daylight whereas at night it'll be headlamps on. Of course, by the same token, during the London day it will be night in Tokyo and San Francisco. When you start to play the handling really shines. All the cars handle very realistically and also all very differently. You can tell if you car is a heavy cumbersome beast or a little nipper. The number of vehicles in the game is also plentiful and varied from Vauxhall Vectras to Lotus Elises.

For much of the time the graphics run at a very smooth 30 frames per second with no slow down or juddering, but for some reason the weather effects do cause slowdown. Particularly the rain effects which can cause extreme slowdown in places. This problem is compounded if any other cars appear on the screen. However the various weather effects do look very impressive, especially the mist and fog so it's not all bad on the weather front. The two player mode is also blighted with a similar loss of graphical speed which makes it less fun to play than it ought to be, so MSR is really a one player venture. Look elsewhere for multiplayer gaming thrills.

This review may seem overly nitpicky. After all, the Graphics are amazingly realistic, the cars handling is just about perfect, the game is huge and varied and there should soon be an internet ladder up and running whereby you can upload lap times etc onto the web and challenge others for driving supremacy. But this game
has been delayed for over a year (it was originally to be a launch title) and with all that time for fine tuning, the flaws present are inexcusible. Too much slow down, an unfair Kudos system and sloppy two player mode. This game is great fun to play and deserves a place in every dreamcast owners games collection. For racing fans it is an essential purchase and ultimately it is these points which are important. But it's not without it's problems and these problems may ruin, or at least detract from, the game for some people.

This last section is tagged on to the end of my review because hopefully I will be able to remove it shortly. Anyone thinking of purchasing MSR now should know that even after a year of tinkering the game has been released with some bugs. These include some versions not being able to play a quick race and championships in which the required points do not have to be met for you to proceed as though you had passed. Also special races, in which you should not be able to enter due to your car being too powerful, still allow you to race and win whatever your vehicle. Sega should have more information about what to do if you own a bugged copy, shortly.

Summary: