| Product: |
Ford Racing (PC) |
| Date: |
06/02/01 (89 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: not many
Disadvantages: lots
Fords are fairly good cars and i looked forward to veiwing a nifty racing game which involved fords. But as is often the case, nothing prepared me for the final product. Ugh. What were they doin? This is a amazingly poor game.
Players are given two choices: Quick Race and Career mode. Don't get excited about Quick Races - only the dull and boring cars are available out of the box. That means you'll race around with a Ka, Escort, F-150 or Explorer. To be honest, I'd just as soon avoid ever driving a Ka or Escort. Please. I have my pride. The other two, the F-150 and Explorer were never, ever meant to drive fast around a track with turns, and this becomes all-too-obvious as the race progresses. Taking a hairpin turn in an Explorer is not fun. It is dangerous. And boring. And slow. And it doesn't exactly accelerate out of the turns, if you know what I mean.
But these cars are merely speed bumps on the road to glory. To access better cars, one must enter a Career. Drivers are given the choice of three different Championship series: Class, Closed and Open. Class Championships place you in races against other similar cars (Escort vs. Escort). Closed Championship races pit your car against other similar classes (Ka vs. Fiesta, for example). Open Championships allow cars of any model (Ka vs. Puma). You gain access to new and better vehicles by winning the Class Championship or Closed Championship. In the Closed Championship, a victory against a better car gives you access to that car.
Visually, this game ranks among the most impressive I've seen. Elite (the developer) has delivered a very impressive array of tracks - with strong attention to detail and excellent textures. Elite has also created high-detailed, high-polygon car models.
Now that I've covered the best aspects of the game (the basic idea and the graphics) I am free to explain exactly why this game belongs in the trash.
Most, if not every, raci
ng game allows a variety of driving views - above and behind the car, inside the car (with and without interior overlay), bumper-level, and extreme 3rd-person (further back and behind the car). I, for one, prefer the view inside the car, usually with the interior overlay. That view is not an option. In fact, there is only one way to play this game: 3rd-person (from above and behind). Egad! It's as if Elite has decided that every other successful racing game had it all wrong. Elite has assumed that the only view anyone could ever want would be the 3rd person view. Even if the vast majority of gamers play with this view, it should be an option, not a directive.
This bad decision ripples through the rest of the game. The 3rd person perspective is great for showing the next bend in a curve, but absolutely dreadful at conveying a sense of speed. Though the speedometer often reads 100mph or greater, it feels much, much slower. Playing Ford Racing is like watching Olympic race walking. You keep expecting things to speed up, but it never does.
On the positive side the Ka, Escort, Fiesta, F-150 and Explorer accurately simulate the real driving experience for these cars. On the negative side, the Ka, Escort, Fiesta, F-150 and Explorer accurately simulate the real driving experience for these cars. Out of the box, however, this is all you get. That translates into a few hours of anti-fun before you get to move on to more fun family sedans! Yippee! I can't wait to get behind the Ford Focus and Ford Taurus!
When I note that the performance of these cars is accurately modeled, I mean it. 0-60mph times in under 30 seconds in the Ka, and the body roll! Oh! The body roll! Where else can you drive a car with serious handling problems? The Escort turns out around .75g on the skidpad (sports cars typically perform in the mid .90s). Wipee! I especially enjoyed the 50-foot turning radius! Car and Driver covered the Escort in an article subtitled "F
ive Cars to Help You Get In Touch with Your Feminine Side." Just what I'm looking for in a game - a drive around the block in my wife's car. And what's the first car you win? The Ford Fiesta! Just what I always wanted! Only the truly masochistic would endure the career gyrations necessary to earn the Ford GT90.
Though many of these models are successful as race vehicles, nothing in this game would convince me these cars have any more umph than a stock base-model. Furthermore, just as racing a go-kart at 30mph can be a great thrill in real life but a bore on a computer, racing a Fiesta on a computer is something of a bore.
Though the audio experience of racing games rarely achieves greatness, I have finally found a unique sonic experience in Ford Racing. For best results, completely disconnect your speakers. Your imagination is much more effective than the sound designers at Elite. Where you might expect a four-banger to produce a high-pitched whine, nothing prepared me for the sound of a rotary tool. Nor did I expect the same high-pitched whine when my RPMs moved from 6,000 to 10,000 - no change in tone, just the same monotonous whine (hence the word, mono-tone-ous, meaning one tone).
In fact, all the changing sound, annoying whines and droll music is best left out completely. Turn off the speakers and put in some Sammy Hagar - "I Can't Drive 55" - woops. In the Ka, that's about all you get!
No car damage. You can bump and grind your opposition to your heart's desire, yet no visual damage ever appears. Nor does functional damage degrade the performance of your car. Purely arcade. I read in an interview with the game's producer that this was a design decision, not a licensing limitation. Hey, good choice. Why make any concessions to realism when you can't even get the sound right.
A Waste of Time
By now you have spent more time reading this review than the few minutes of f
un Ford Racing delivers. I strongly recommend Empire Interactive change the name to Test Drive: Ford Family Cars. No matter how good the graphics, everything else falls apart within minutes of play. Small wonder that Empire doesn't include this title on its web site. I'd be embarrassed as well.
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