R U daring anouth to play the game (Top Gear Dare Devil (PS2))

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Product:	Top Gear Dare Devil (PS2)
Date:	24/05/01 (3 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: not much

Disadvantages: umm

Imagine a game that recreated the famous Mini Cooper scene from the Italian Job, and you'll be two thirds of the way in thinking of Papaya's Top Gear Dare Devil. It features a Mini Cooper, an Italian course, but just lacks any sort of exciting racing thrills.

Dare Devil's gameplay simply revolves around driving around a small portion of a real life city collecting coins. If you collect enough coins you can move on to the next course. This seems quite fun at first, but after you've unlocked a few of the other cities you begin to realize this game isn't going to be throwing any more surprises at you. What the game boils down to is a next-gen vehicular version of Pac-Man. Papaya has tried to tuck some replay value in there by awarding extra cars for collecting all the coins. But it only takes a couple of tries before you work out the route the line of coins takes through the city. After a couple of hours play I had three of the cities and all but one of the cars unlocked.



All the vehicles featured in the game are based on real cars, none of which are officially licensed so they don't use their real names, but it doesn't take a genius to work out what they are. You begin you coin collecting journey behind the wheel of small run-a-bout cars such as Mini's and 2CV's, but you can unlock more sporty brands such as Porsche and Lotus, which offer more speed at the cost of maneuverability. Also secretly hidden in each level is a key, if you collect all of the keys from each course it unlocks a bonus stage, where you have to cause as much damage as you can in a certain time limit. If you beat the top score you get...wait for it...a new paint job for your car. Nope, I didn't think it was very exciting either.

There are four cities in total, Rome, London, Tokyo and San Francisco. Unfortunately you only get to race around in a small portion of the cities, and although the levels are based on real lif
e locations the Papaya folk have taken a few liberties in altering their apperances, changing them into cute little compact toy town versions. This isn't so bad, but most people will agree that nothing beats speeding across a full sized city. The handling of the cars is quite strange at first. You will find your car has a turning circle about the size of the circumference of the moon, which as you can imagine makes things pretty difficult for getting around 90 degree corners. Once you get to grips with the handling (i.e. totally rethink the way you think a car should handle) you should be able to weave through the streets and traffic without a problem. Though if the traffic does get in your way, then don't get too worried as all the other vehicles seem to be made from polystyrene, and will just bounce off your car.



The visuals of the game are pretty neat, and show the Papaya guys and gals have a good understanding of the PS2's technical capabilities, and you'll find there are no jaggies or shimmering textures to be seen. The car models are quite detailed, and have a slick shiny finish to them. The cities are also bustling with traffic and you'll find all sorts of obstacles, which you can plow through. There was a tiny bit of pop up on occasions but nothing too noticeable and it didn't really get in the way of the gameplay.

The split screen multiplayer is good fun for a while, especially the excellent bomb tag mode, which rekindled memories of the classic arcade game GTI Club. Also, the only racing action you will see in Dare Devil is featured in the multiplayer mode, but unfortunately that won't keep you going for very long as it soon wears thin, leaving you to wishing for some more varied gameplay modes and levels.

The Bottom Line...
It seems like a lot of Papaya's development time went into getting to grips with the new machine and making the game look nice, rather than how to make the g
ame interesting by throwing in some fun gameplay modes and extras. With a bit more depth Dare Devil could probably have been the PlayStation 2's answer to Nintendo's Mario Kart. Maybe I'm just too much of a hardcore gamer to get any lasting enjoyment from the game, and it is probably best suited to a younger crowd. Watch out, Papaya's next title might kick you're ass.

Summary: