GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Terrible
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 05/01/2001
- Released on: 03/29/2001
- Originally published on GameSpot: Kawasaki Fantasy Motocross (PC) Review
Kawasaki Fantasy Motocross is one of those rare games that goes beyond simply being bad or disappointing. In light of this, the fact that veteran motorcycle manufacturer Kawasaki even chose to be involved with such an inferior project comes as a surprise. However, the fact that the developer, Canopy Games, was also behind 1999's forgettable Harley Davidson: Race Across America is no surprise at all. Offering virtually no redeeming qualities, Kawasaki Fantasy Motocross is one of the most frustrating arcade bike racing games to date.
Fantasy Motocross puts you in the role of a daredevil motocross rider whose sole motivation, it would seem, is to win races and thereby unlock the half dozen tracks that are unavailable at the start. The game offers no championship round, multi-event season, or alternate form of ongoing enticement. Nor does it let you win money and build a bank account for mechanical upgrades or bigger and better bikes. In truth, Fantasy Motocross is merely a loose assemblage of unrelated races and, as such, offers very little long-term incentive.
You'll begin by choosing a virtual rider. Unfortunately, the only difference between one rider and another is the color and pattern of his clothing, so choosing the dude named Elvis over the dude named Dude has very little significance. Next, you'll select from a 125cc, 250cc, or 500cc motorcycle and then head to the primitive garage facility to modify your tires, sprockets, pipes, and springs. Yet, once you're racing, a 125cc bike with a short track setup feels ridiculously similar to a 500cc bike with a long track setup. In other words, unless color schemes are really important to you, it really doesn't matter what options you choose before a race.
What does matter is your choice of race parameters. The game offers two distinct event types: race and freestyle. The former is a standard timed competition of one to seven laps, which involve as many as seven computer opponents. The latter puts you alone on a jump-filled segment of each circuit and asks that you perform as many aerial stunts as possible within an allotted time frame. The only prerequisite is that you've already unlocked the track and its corresponding trick section in race mode.
While the tricks and stunts of freestyle are mildly entertaining for a short period of time, race mode is clearly the heart of the game. Unfortunately, once you've run through even the first track a couple of times, you'll encounter a host of different problems. For starters, the various tracks are narrow and claustrophobic. You'll most often find yourself ricocheting back and forth between walls like an Olympic bobsledder.
Part of the problem is that collisions with scenery produce erratic results. Most often, you'll be propelled back onto the racing surface, but other times you'll be thrown viciously from your ride or simply be stopped in your tracks. In some instances, you may be allowed to pass right through the foreign object. There's really no telling what a specific obstacle will do until you come up against it.
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