Checkered Flag

"In the field but not ahead of the pack."

Racing games on the Jaguar seem to be numerous, with Checkered Flag being the bottom of the list in several different areas. From the start screen, you have the image of a what might be a good racing game, but unfortunately, it seems to lack the moment you press start. With only a few different tracks and a couple of different cars that you can choose from, you might hope that the game has something going for it. The only portion of the game that seems to have anything noteworthy is the fact that you can race through with one of six different views and the lack of a two-player option.

For the most part, when you think of a good racing game, Checkered Flag has several aspects that might be considered part of the formula. However, with the tracks, weather conditions and views, you have only enough to make the title mildly interesting for any racing game fan to enjoy. When you start through the game, there are several game options that you can work with to try and make it somewhat interesting to play, and they do tend to have some pretty impressive features in the way that the car handles on the track. Once you’ve gotten through all of what you’re looking for, the actual race takes place and no matter what you do, you’re either going up against a superior computer or a stupid one.

-The Game Play-

As with most racing games, you’re in the field against several computer drones that are either exceptionally intelligent or exceptionally stupid depending on your luck. For the most part, the racing is straight-forward, and if you do happen to get turned around in reverse, you do have the ability to turn your car in the right direction and move yourself down the track. The fact that you control how many laps you race and the difficulty of the computer cars is something worth taking a look at, but it seems as though the more you race and easier you make the computer, the less interesting the game becomes. On the flip side, if you make the difficulty higher and the laps less, then you really have no chance of winning.

Some of the more interesting in game features that Checkered Flag has to offer is the fact that if you flip your car, you always end up on your tires and ready to go. To further this little bit of interesting game play, you can still control your car while you’re flipping through the air so when you land, you’re still moving at an incredible speed. Your car is invincible, so you really don’t have to worry about blowing up or losing too many places on the track because you have to wait for your car to reappear. While this is a weird feature, it doesn’t help you to become a better driver, simply because you can smash into whatever and still stay in the top three to the finish.

Control is an issue here in which the car is extremely touchy in the way that it handles on the track. From time to time, you might over-steer which will cause your car to go spinning out of control, or you might not catch the correct curve at different times which will cause you to go headlong into the wall. Once you’ve gotten a handle on the control and learned how to work with the car, you might have lost fifty races and might have already lost interest in the game. This is something that some beginners and even veterans to the genre will find to be the most disheartening in which the game is easily stopped because the car requires such a steady hand.

-The Visuals-

Visually, Checkered Flag has little going for it and the polygon models are only interesting the first couple of times that you play. The six different views that you have are cool, but most of them are detrimental to the racing and you might find that you can’t race effectively with anything but the default. The weather effects are neat, but they can also hinder just what it is that you’re doing by not allowing you the ability to race and see where the track is going. You have your meters and your gauges, which all keep you in the theme of the racing along with a little map that gives you a position of your car and the cars behind you. Small details like this go a long way, but they are small details and nothing that you can base the entire experience around.

-The Audio-

Probably the most impressive feature that the game has to offer, the music is set around each of the ten tracks. Though it doesn’t have the upbeat and sometimes catchy tunes that Tempest 2000 does, it does tend to offer you enough of a variety between the tracks to take notice. The sound effects are also done in good fashion, with the roar of the engine and the squealing tires as you go around the sharp corners of the tracks. However, these really don’t do much in the long run and it can get a little on the boring side if you have the lap amount set extremely high.

-The Verdict-

While Checkered Flag has some impressive points, it has plenty of things that keep it from being the best. Most of these revolve around the lack of stability in the game play and the difficulty and the hard to learn control. The visuals are good the first couple of times around, and the views are a nice touch although they are essentially useless to use in the races. The audio is good enough to be catchy on most of the stages, but the lack of change when you have a long race to perform can make is a little hard on the ears. Aside from those problems, you have an average racing game that could have been great had the final testing of the game been done with a little more tweaking to the overall programming.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/02, Updated 09/30/02