San Francisco Rush 2049

"The once breathtakingly fun Rush series becomes just another boring old racer"

The Rush series continues. But after this game, I wish it weren’t. Compared to the 2 previous Rush games, this is just a lame old racing game. The previous 2 games included madcap stunts and building jumps during its races. What does 2049 give us? Wings. Good for nothing wings. To add insult to injury there's barely any jumps to use the wings. So where have all our favourite stunts gone? They’re certainly not in the bare boned stunt mode. Yeah, there's this new stunt mode thingy. It’s fun, for a period of about 10 seconds. I was ready to smash the GD-ROM, except that I had paid money for it, and I don’t think EB would have liked their disc in little bits.

So what is this game you ask? Well Rush 2049 is a racer. The Rush series had a subtitle of Extreme Racing, but the racing in this game is no where near extreme. It’s below average. Something I thought I’d never say about a Rush game. Let’s get this farce over and done with so I can play some decent games.

Graphics: 7

Yeah they look good, and you know why? Because its on the Dreamcast, and everything looks good on the Dreamcast (well, certain Acclaim wrestling games don’t, but lets leave that for another day). The graphics are pretty good. There’s some nice chrome on the cars, not a jagged edge in sight. The cars are big, and modelled quite well, and generally have a polished look to them. Best so far in the series.

The backgrounds are nearly jaw dropping. They are oh so clear and crisp, and they have lots of pretty neon lights. Unfortunately, I don’t like games based on graphics, they must also have gameplay. To add insult to injury, the framerate can get really really shoddy at times, enough to hinder gameplay, even enough to make you want to stop playing, and go to real racing games, like MSR.

Sound: 5

The soundtrack blows. It’s a bunch of futuristic techno-crap, which is what one tends to expect from a crappy futuristic racer. Gone is the hard rock-ish soundtrack of the originals. The engine effects are quite lame too, as are most of the sound effects. The effect for blowing up is barely anything at all, I cant hear it amongst the legions of other shoddy sound effects.

Story: ?

Being a racing game, it doesn’t have a story, so this section is pointless.

Gameplay: 2

I used to like Rush. The gameplay was intense and all out wild. Now, it’s just a boring old racer. All the stunts from the normal races are all but gone. No more insane building jumps. What's left of the stunts has been churned out into the really quite crap Stunt Mode. An innovative feature of this game is the addition of wings to the cars, but this just over complicates how stunts are done, and turns the game into an all out crapfest.

There is now support for up to 4 players, but I don’t know 4 people desperate enough to play this tripe. There’s a circuit mode too, but that’s just another feature of a boring old racer. This is just sad to watch, and really shows that Midway is only about a ¼ of the company they used to be.

Lastability: 1

I don’t want to play it anymore. I forced myself to play it for an hour, just to be able to give it a fair review. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this horrid experience. For those that like this crap, there's enough to keep you there for a little while, but for me I can’t stand it and have already returned it.

Pro’s

- Graphics are sort of nice
- Makes a good drink coaster
- EB gives full refunds on bad games

Con’s

- Basically everything else the game has to offer

Overall: 2

Seeing I’m in a good mood, it gets 2, but only just. Take my word for it, and avoid it at all costs. Even if you see it in a bargain bin for $5, don’t bother, there are many other games which are much better than this load of bantha crap.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 02/18/01, Updated 02/25/01