Cruis'n Exotica

"The line between bad and real bad becomes blurred"

Intro:

The first time I played Cruis'n Exotica in a dark dingy arcade, I thought ''This would be an awesome game to play in my dark dingy room!'' How wrong I was. This game is fun, as long as you play it in an arcade, or have a very, very long attention span.

Storyline: 1/10

If you chose this game expecting a unique plotline, go back and pick a different one. Until ''Beat all the tracks and get all the cars'' can be considered a serious storyline, I will be forced to put a bad score here.

Graphics: 6/10

One of Exotica's few saving graces, the graphics are lost in the fair-to-good category. The multitude of vehicles are well designed, the countries/planets look like the creators spent about an hour in each area, and the ''LSD-Inspired'' Exotic Camera Mode is just... well, that is a sight in and of itself. Everything is translucent and the colors are royally messed up. It was and is a pointless extra and it is my fervent hope that no one is entertained by it.

Sound: 5/10

Another of Exotica's high(a term I use loosely)points is the sound and music. The sound effects are semi-realistic, and the music is mediocre, but if you dont like it, you can chose one of the other 6 or 7 songs in mid-race. Or you can chose to turn off the sound and music altogether, an option I found myself using almost constantly.

Challenge: 3/10

In a mere 30 minutes I had mastered the ''Hard'' difficulty. Unless you have absolutely no hand-eye coordination or are attempting to master moving the control stick with your mind, the game offers little-to-no challenge.

Variety: 8/10
In the beginning, there were 12 cars. And the 12 cars were good. But soon, you could find new cars... hidden cars. Such as a forklift, a hearse, a true race car, a rocket, and a busted-up station wagon. The one thing I found fun about this game was trying to ind all the cars... I am still 3 short.
Also... besides the ''try to beat all the tracks without finishing below 1st place'' mode, there is a freestyle mode, as well as a ''beat one-half of a track, beat the other half, do the whole track three times, then enter a drag race'' mode.

Overall (not an average):4/10
As hard as the game tried, it just didn't ''click'' with me. It is repetitive, pointless, and utterly hopeless to attempt to find anything remotely amusing about it

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/01, Updated 07/19/01