JEO 32/46
I'm still enjoying my new Welsh status, and breaking the Cow Barn in
with lots of mega coding sessions and games of San Francisco Rush on
the old Ninty 64. I bought the game when I was out in the US at the
end of November, and it has proved to be a favourite with just about
everyone who played it - when the lads came over the other weekend the
session turned into what was basically a non-stop SFR-a-thon. There
are definitely better- looking driving games on the Ninty, and at
first when you play it you get the distinct impression that the cars
just don't steer as much as they should do, but once you learn the
tracks and get used to the idea that you need to slack off the
accelerator a bit at times and learn the proper line to cut off the
corners and keep your speed up, you soon start getting into it. SFR
chucks any attempt at realism firmly in the bin and comes down solidly
on the side of pure fun. This is particularly evident in the fact that
you actually spend almost as much time in the air as you do driving
along the road - drive over the slightest hump in the road and you'll
lift off; drive quickly over the crest of a hill and you launch into
an amazing, vertiginous leap that is as exhilarating as it is
unrealistic. Line up your takeoff wrong and there is plenty of scope
for somersaulting madly out of control or ploughing into the side of a
large building, usually resulting in a large fireball. There is also
scope for pulling off some totally ludicrous jammy survivals - launch
into the air, spin end-over-end a few times, and then find that you
have landed safely on top of a building a couple of hundred feet up in
the air! The tracks contain numerous shortcuts and hidden things, and
you can play them forwards or backwards and mirrored, which adds a bit
to the game's longevity. The drivers of the other cars are, as they
should be, complete bastards, and think nothing of ramming you into
the side of a building at 130MPH. They are not infallible though, and
it's satisfying to be flying down some huge hill and see the fireballs
of a couple of your opponents burning away on the ground where they
cocked it up and ploughed in. Definitely a game that falls squarely
into the "good laff" school of gameplay, and a good one to get out
when your mates come around.
... The world was made for people not cursed with self-awareness. -BD
--- JetMail 0.99beta22
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