Metropolis Street Racer by Sega of America
for Sega Dreamcast
Review
by : Russ
Ray
There's
something to be said for a challenging video game. Then again,
there's something else to be said for a video game whose difficulty
level is so frustrating that it's not worth it. Therein lies
the rub against Metropolis Street Racer. If it wasn't
for the fact that how much flash and flair your driving has
is more important than actually winning races, this would
be the greatest racing video game of all time (I haven't played
Gran Turismo 3 yet).
 Metropolis
Street Racer takes place in three cities: the winding narrow
streets of London, the hilly streets of San Francisco, and
the freeways of Tokyo. Over 40 production sports cars are
available in the game, including Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Renault,
Mitsubishi, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Honda, and Ford. You start
off with a couple of Mazdas, a Fiat and a Mitsubishi as available
cars and unlock more as the game goes on. You can customize
cars with different paint jobs and choose between a hardtop
and a convertible.
The details
that were thought of for this game are so insane that they're
not to be believed. First of all, the game asks you what time
it is, because the races are set in real time. In other words,
if you're playing the game at 8:00 in the Eastern Time Zone,
it will be the middle of the night when you race in London,
dusk in Frisco, and late morning in Tokyo. Of course, if you
play the game at 3 a.m. (you must be lonely), it will be night
in San Francisco, morning in London, and sunset in Tokyo,
and so on.
Another
great detail: the music. Each city has three radio stations
(complete with music and commercials) with different formats
on each station. San Francisco has rock, country, and hip-hop
(at one point, the DJ even mentions the Fourth Quarter of
last night's football game). London has jazz, europop, and
hip-hop. Tokyo has techno, pop, and rock (and the DJs even
speak Japanese). Even crazier than that is the fact that if
you drive under an overpass or through a tunnel, the signal
goes out until you're in the clear again. And, if you get
tired of all listening to the radio, you've got a CD changer
in the trunk with music you can listen too. Like I said, INSANE.
 The
tracks are all phenomenal to race on, and there is even traffic
you have to dodge. Each city has three different neighborhoods,
including a park in London and the Westminster Abbey and a
resemblance of Lombard Street, Fisherman's Wharf and the downtown
financial district for San Francisco. Plus, all the tracks
are based off of different configurations of the street systems,
so two tracks within the same neighborhood could be different
with the placement of walls at different intersections.
The downside
of the game is the "Kudos" system that it uses to
score you. Making hairpin turns without damaging your car,
jumping phenomenal distances, and passing through traffic
with great skill and precision gives you Kudos. Hitting other
cars or buildings, driving unimpressively, and not making
it around turns will cause you to lose Kudos, as will forfeiting
a race or failing to complete a mission. There are 25 levels
in the game altogether, and in order to complete a level,
you need a certain amount of Kudos. The problem is, even if
you win race after race, if you still don't have enough Kudos
to pass to the next level, the game gets really, really frustrating
and then really boring really fast.
For all
the style Metropolis Street Racer has and the great ideas
they put into the little things in the game, unless you're
an experienced driver or a hardcore racing fan, this isn't
the game for you. After the novelty wears off, you'll want
to put it away for a long, long time.
Disclaimer:
I'm very, very, very ashamed for making a joke out of a lyric
to a Matchbox 20 song.
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