Virtua Racing Deluxe

"Moving block racing to the extreme"

Standard racing game with only three cars: Stock, Formula, and Prototype (in order of uselessness [from greatest to least]). There was only about four or five tracks to race on. Also note that I could only ever win the very first race with the Stock car. I never won a single race besides that. Whether this was because I just suck or not is for you to decide. Oddly enough, the only part of this game I liked was when in one player mode, when you put your car in cockpit view you saw the driver's brick-like hands turn the wheel. That was pretty much the only redeeming quality of the game for me. That and the guy in the beginning who says, ''Virtua...RACING!!''

Imagine 32X Virtua Fighter graphics in a racing game. For whatever reason I liked the Virtua Fighter graphics. In a fighting game, anyway. But they just didn't work in a racing game, especially because in this game they all looked like Leggo cars. Even though, yeah, the characters in Virtua Fighter sort of looked like Leggos, too....but I really didn't mind so much. I kind of liked the backgrounds. Like the one with the crude, sharp-edged ferris wheel in the distance. I bet that was fun to ride.

There wasn't much sound apart from ''vroom.'' And when you crashed, there was some sort of impact sound. The tires made okay skidding sounds, too. I would say that it could have been better, but considering the rest of the game, maybe it couldn't after all. I don't even remember if there was music in this game. If there was, I'll bet it wasn't all that good. There may have been some faint background music made with a drum synthesizer. I sort of remember something like that. I probably would like it a lot better now.

The controls weren't all that great because no matter how hard I tried I could never make a turn without smashing into a wall or another car. I'm not sure if the brakes were even fully functional. Not that I ever used them anyway. But this was a pretty cool game when it came out. At least I thought so. I played it a hell of a lot, just was never any good at it. I think it's because I had no other real racing game. I guess you could say it was better than most racing games at the time, but I really can't name any right now. It's really nothing you couldn't live without. I was sort of impressed, when I was nine or so. When I play it now I start to wonder when exactly 32X began to suck. I also heard that this game was something like $100 when it came out. My parents bought this for me and my brother for Christmas maybe? I feel kind of bad now...

Sound: 5/10
Graphics: 5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Replay Value: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/28/03, Updated 06/27/06