San Francisco Rush 2049

"Brilliant. Simply brilliant."

For some reason there seems to be an awful lot of Dreamcast games set in San Francisco. For a start, we have loose adaptations of the city in both Sonic Adventure 2 and Crazy Taxi. More realistically there's Super Runabout which is set solely there and the highly accurate layout seen in MSR. And here we have San Francisco Rush 2049... Super Runabout notwithstanding, all those games are Dreamcast classics. So how does this Midway arcade conversion stand up against them? Fantastically, in a word as Rush 2049 is one of those rare gems - a game that by all rights should be pretty average, but actually turns out to be completely wonderful. Let's have a look shall we...?

First things first. As the title would suggest, the game is set in San Francisco, circa 2049, so everythings all a bit futuristic. Majestic monorails glide over the neon drenched city and everything's all very bright coloured. Having never been there I don't know how much of it is based on the actual current city, but I certainly recognised bits I'd seen in Super Runabout and MSR before. One of the main things which sets it apart from other racers is the fact that your cars have wings which pop out at the touch of a button, which allow players to glide themselves safely through jumps, rather than flying headlong into a building and exploding (note - this happens A LOT!). Whilst in the standard circuit mode, this feature doesn't come into use all that much, when you go into Stunt Mode, it's a different kettle of fish altogether. So ''what's stunt mode?'' I hear you cry.

Well Stunt mode sees the racer take his or her car into a huge arena filled with ramps and jumps. Here you must try and pull of the most insane stunts imaginable (usually with the help of the wings) to get big points. Or more often than not explode. As well as Stunt mode, there's battle mode. This is basically a deathmatch in cars, with the vehicles now being fitted with all manner of hardcore munitions.

The standard circuit racing mode, whilst not particularly different from any other arcade racer out there (Speed Devils, Daytona, etc.) is very fast and exciting. It's not easy either, but luckily you don't have to be fantastic to unlock stuff - certainly, some things are unlockable by coming first in every race, but you can get the basics by just coming in the top three, which makes it far less frustrating than it might have otherwise been. The true greatness of this game comes into play however in the stunt and battle modes, particularly in multiplayer (it's a 1 to 4 player game). The stunt mode in 2 player mode is one of the most entertaining multi-player games I've ever experienced - it's just such a laugh to play! As for the battle mode, it's everything Vigilante 8 should have been. Therefore it doesn't take about half an hour to kill your opponent and the small arenas are very well designed.

Graphically, it's rather pretty. It's not the best looking game you'll ever see by any means, but the bold neon cityscape is done well and for the most part the frame-rate remains at 60fps. The cars do look rather undetailed, but they're not bad by any means. Another point to note is the loading times - or more to the point, the lack of. Considering the size of the circuits is fairly huge, it takes about 2 seconds to load! It's quite incredible. Sound wise, the game is nothing special, it has to be said. Aside from the awful Euro-dance on the Mission track, it's all passable byt pretty nondescript. On the other hand though, the sound effects are pretty cool, most notably the sound it makes when your car explodes and the heap of burning wreckage that remains trundles to a stop...

All in all, there's so much to do in Rush 2049, it'll take an age for you to get bored with it. There's a fair few tracks and numerous modes other than the Stunt and Battle to unlock as well. Perhaps the most impressive facts is that each of the extra modes would stand together as great games in their own right and don't feel like something the programmers just tacked on to get higher ratings in the ''Value for Money'' stakes. With loads to do and an incredibly addictive multi-player mode, I wholeheartedly recommend this game.

GRAPHICS - 7/10 - Big, bold and pretty. Not spectacular it must be said, but nevertheless, still very nice.

SOUND - 6/10 - Nice sound effects, but the music is pretty average.

GAMEPLAY - 8/10 - Addictive as hell! With three distinctly different car based games in one, you'll never get bored - especially as they're all so good!

LIFESPAN - 9/10 - As I've said, essentially 3 games in one! Tonnes of different modes, cars, tracks and engine types to unlock and it's one of the best multi-player games on Dreamcast.

OVERALL 8/10 - In layman's terms... THIS ROCKS!!!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/17/03, Updated 01/17/03