Cruis'n USA

"It was a good 1st gen racer"

Hey, It was the first racing game for the Nintendo 64. So of course compared to today's racers, it's at the bottom of the pile. But for being the first to lead the way for many, I consider it to be pretty darn good. If you are looking for a long, complex racing experience with lots of options and mods, THIS GAME IS NOT FOR YOU!! But if you're looking to kick back and just enjoy yourself for awhile this may not be a bad selection.

Gameplay 4/10
It's a racing game. You race. Not to complex. The controls are pretty good, not to loose, not to tight, but a warning, definitely not realistic. You can't power slide or any fancy stuff like that. There are more than three difficulty levels. But the difficulty doesn't change that drastically unless you boost it up a few notches. Easy is ridiculously easy and hard is ridiculously hard. It kind of stinks that there is only one playable level when you first start, but that's the point of the game, to unlock levels by ''Cruising the U.S.A.''. A couple of the levels look suspiciously similar to each other though. And no, you can not hit deer in this game. That's only on the arcade version. You can, however, hit flies when you set the view for in car. And the invisible walls that they put at the sides to stop you from straying off aren't very innovative. But that's not a big complaint for me.

Audio/Visual 5/10
It's an old game so the graphics are horrible! But pretty good for their time. Nice looking cars but the rest is just blah. Like the people at the end of the race cheering you on are so blocky and polygonal it's laughable. But hey, you can drive a police car! The music sounds pretty nice at first, but gets very repetitive. It's crisp though. The engine sounds aren't really worth mentioning.

Re playability 7/10
Pretty fun game if you're looking for a simplistic racer. It's the same tracks over and over but they're not boring. And it's fun increasing the difficulty a notch so you can get the next, faster car. Even though it's the same car you used, only in a different color.

Overall I would recommend this game if you can get it for around 10 bucks.
6/10
Not an average

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/13/02, Updated 05/13/02