Vanishing Point

"Great Racing Fan Pleaser"

With Metropolis Street Racer Being delayed way too much, and Sega GT have a ''simulation'' feeling to it, I wanted a racing experience similar to Daytona USA, but even that wasn't out yet for Dreamcast. So I decided to pick up Vanishing Point hoping for some fun quick arcade style driving.

What I got though really surprised me, in a good way! You begin the game with only two unlocked cars and one track, and must unlock everything else. Let me tell you, the track unlocking process is simple, as you only have to beat a track once with and car of your choice to get the next track. The real challenge in this game comes from the simple Championship Mode and the extensive Stunt Mode.

In Championship mode you unlock cars, each car has three heats of races, bronze silver and gold, beat each one and unlock something, usually a car in at gold level. Keep doing this and you'll have a lot of stuff unlocked in no time. Some cars are dead easy to play with but some are impossible to control at high on dangerous tracks like the Audi TT. This is why you must unlock the Garage, so you may tweak and perfect your car to suit your needs. As you race though keep in mind that you are not racing against opponents, but the clock. Each track, for each car has a specified time that you must beat in order to progress or earn higher points. As you move up the ranks on to higher and harder tracks the times diminish and the challenge increases just enough to keep you playing for more.

Stunt mode starts you off thinking it's the easiest mode in the game, well it's not. As you progress through the challenges to unlock the next one you must earn a certain number of cumulative these get harder and harder to get as the challenges get harder and harder to even complete, never the less earn good points on them. This mode has around twenty different challenges, and for each one you aren't allowed to use the same car, you get a totally random car for each event, making this mode even more challenging. But in the end it's worth the toil.

In the end though, you will enjoy the stunt track, the scenery as you race against the clock, the great graphics, and amazing replay value. In the end all racing fans will be pleased.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/01, Updated 12/28/01