Speed Devils by UBI Soft
for Sega Dreamcast
Review
by : Russ
Ray
I've been
on this weird racing kick lately because I haven't been able
to play Gran Turismo 3 yet. Most of that is because,
well, I don't have my Playstation 2 yet. So, my sole purpose
for the next two months is to get as much use out of my Dreamcast
before I send it packing. If it looks like I've focused a
little too much on Dreamcast, I'm sorry, but this is my swan
song.
If you
like games like Cruisin' USA/World/Exotica and San
Francisco Rush (or even build-them-up arcade racers like
the old Ironman Ivan Stewart's Off-Road arcade game,
Rock-n-Roll Racing for SNES and R.C. Pro-Am
for NES), you're going to enjoy Speed Devils. The premise
of the game is that your benefactor loans you a car and starts
you out on a circuit. Your job is to win as many races as
you can and accumulate money. Easy, so far, right? You collect
bonus cash for Fastest Lap, Longest Lead, and Highest Speed,
as well as cash for speeding through radar traps. Along the
way, you can use that money to repair damage, add equipment,
and place bets against other racers on the outcome of races.
Like Midway's
Cruisin' series and Atari's Rush series, the
name of this game is the tracks themselves. You generally
race against four other cars in such places as Hollywood (where
you drive into the hills behind the Hollywood sign and through
a backlot where movie monsters try to attack you), Las Vegas
(complete with a trip up the strip, on out into the desert
through Area 51 and across Hoover Dam), Canada (where it can
be clear or snowy), and New York City. There are about ten
different locations in the game, but depending on the circuit,
you may end up racing a reverse route. Because the backgrounds
are so interesting, that's part of the charm of this game.
Not only that, but the difficulty of driving in rain and snow
is also there. .
The cars
themselves really don't differ much except in appearance.
You can pick your car's paint job, and that's about all the
customization the game allows. Fortunately, damage shows up
in this game, so if you take a few shots during a race, the
hood folds up, for example. There are a lot of racing games
that let you flip a car about 20 times and yet the paint stays
pristine.
Speed
Devils is a fun, yet simple game to play with a lot of
replay value. It's always fun to scrutinize the tracks to
see what's going on in the background as you're flying by
at 220, and it's a challenging game to play as well.
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