by Jay "THE FLEA" Wade
I’ve always been a fan of racing games like Gran Turismo, Need for Speed and Test Drive.
Acclaim has decided to join the race with Vanishing Point. (VP)
You start off with only two cars to play, After winning races you can earn up about 30 cars.
Not only are there the high performance sports cars, but sedans, SUV’s and Trucks.
The single player tournaments is not like any other racing game. Instead of you racing against the computer cars and he who is in the lead finishes first. It’s all about time.
You have a time to beat. If you beat the time, you come in first and move on. If you don’t you’ll be second or lower. In your race for time you’ll have to avoid your opponent drivers. (I’m not really sure why these cars are here?) And avoid traffic cars. This is a drawback to the game because it’s fells less like racing and more like time trails. But trying to beat the times is addicting.
Acclaim did a great job on how the cars look and feel. They bounce, swerve and even roll over if you crash into other cars or objects. There’s no damage when you crash the cars, but this is common in video games with licensed cars due to the companies don’t want their cars to look bad.
Another minus in VP is the lack of upgrades for your cars. There’s a “tuneup” option. But it only changes some of the settings of the car. Gran Turismo is still tops when it comes to upgrading cars.
The tracks are also a site to see. While a few shortcuts could have been a plus, the backdrop settings do give the player much to look at and want to play again.
The control is horrible on default settings, and only become playable if you change all the settings.
If this option was missing, VP would get terrible marks on control.
There’s a few multi player mini games in VP, and some are a lot of fun. You and your friends will be playing for hours to out stunt each other. It’s like Tony Hawk is behind the wheel.
Overall, if you like racing and can find a good racer on the Dreamcast. I would recommend Vanishing Point. You might want to rent first just to make sure its your kind of racing game.
PUBLISHER: ACCLAIM
ESRB RATING: E
PLAYERS: 1-2
GRAPHICS: 9 MUSIC & SOUND: 8 CONTROL: 7
SECRETS: 10 ORIGINALITY: 8 FUN & REPLAY: 8
OVERALL: 8