ESPN Speedworld
I'm not an ambi-turnerGenre: racing - simulation
Publisher: Sony
Year: 1994
System: SNES
Gameplay Score: 1
Gameplay Notes:
Is there a sport more boring that stock car racing? I guess I can understand why someone would watch the sport. Well, not really, but whatever, I'm trying to throw someone a bone. Even if it has its virtues, this sport makes for an incredibly poor gaming experience. The entire gameplay can be summed up in two statements: hold X and press left. That's it. There's nothing else to do. The game honors your request to do those two things, which is more than can be said for trash like College Football '97, but there is nothing to do in this game.
Level Design Score: 0
Level Design Notes:
Three tracks. Three. And they're all ovals. Yup
Theme Score: 0
Theme Notes:
I hate stock car racing. I also hate ESPN. Boom. I would never pick this up off the shelf
Art Style Score: 1
Art Style Notes:
The track animates smoothly but it's also devoid of any features whatsoever. The cars animate poorly and don't scale well either. They're also very small on screen. Nothing looks particularly good. Half the screen is covered by the HUD which works surprisingly well since THERES NOTHING TO DO in this game.
Audio Score: 1
Audio Notes:
Just road noise and a lot of crunching when cars bump together.
Overall Score: 14
Review ID: 162
This game has like 15 different tracks, like 4 of them are road courses. You clearly didn't press the down button when you got to the track selection screen as there only shows 3 tracks for every time you hit down. The main valid critique I have with this game is your car has no speed and that requires you to draft with the other cars even at tracks that drafting isn't a real thing like short tracks and road courses. The SNES is the best version of the game but it's still a meh game even as a NASCAR fan. Sony's first try at a racing game, at least they did much better 3 years later
ReplyDeleteHey, what do you know!? Sure enough, pressing up or down allows the selection of 12 other tracks. That's... unintuitive. Thanks for the tip!
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