TEAM LOSI RC RACER CD WIN95

CNET editors' rating: 2.0 stars Mediocre
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Overall score: 4.2 (2.0 stars)
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Ryan Donald
• Reviewed on: 10/28/1998
• Updated on:05/02/2000
• Released on: 10/01/1998

Team Losi RC Racer is a 3D racing game that puts you in control of RC cars. Unfortunately, it's not the 3D RC Pro-Am that many had been hoping for. Instead, RC Racer is plagued with problems in just about every category. You're still better off with your 8-bit copy of RC Pro-Am

The interface for selecting levels to race is done in a Mario 64-like fashion. You drive your car around in a 3D environment and pick a level portal that transports your car to the course you choose. While it worked perfectly for Mario, there's really no need for such an intricate and confusing method for a racing game. After you complete a handful of tracks you drive around trying to find portals that you haven't already entered.

Once you start a race, you go up against four other computer-controlled RC cars. If you end up in any position other than first, you must race the level all over again. Once you place first in all of the tracks within a section, a new area opens up with more tracks and new cars. Eventually you end up with a total of 15 courses and 16 cars.

The racing here is hardly about how tight you take turns but instead is all about making it through the correct order of the colored gates. If you hit three gates in the correct sequence, your car gets brief power-ups, like freezing time for a moment, speed bursts, and a little shield thing that makes other cars lose control when they touch you. The game is fairly easy; all you have to do is go for the gates and win. The only time you really fall behind is when you get turned around after rolling and can't tell at first what direction you're facing.

The control is really good if you're using a Dual Shock pad since it performs just like a real RC car controller. The left analog stick lets you steer the car, while the other controls your speed. Unfortunately, if you only have a regular controller, the control is horrible. You are constantly pressing left and right on the D-pad to try to keep the car moving in a forward direction.

Visually, Team Losi is pretty rough around the edges. The camera view is the typical behind-the-car driving-game view. Unfortunately, the camera view bounces a lot when the car hops over bumps in the course. This constant camera motion not only makes it hard to keep track of your car's position in the environment, but also strains your eyes after a while. As if that's not bad enough, some of the tracks in the game suffer from horrendous pop-up, letting you watch the track fill in right before your eyes. This is quite annoying since you can't see what's coming up in front of you. This problem is compounded by the game's uneven frame rate that drops quite significantly when all the cars appear onscreen. The music is kind of funky, not bad funky, just kind of generic funky. The sound effects are believable enough although kind of annoying - which also describes the game as a whole.

Overall, Team Losi RC Racer is a below-average racing game, regardless of the RC car gimmick and license. This was a good idea but, unfortunately, very poorly executed.

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