MRC: Multi-Racing Championship

"Not that bad of a game"

Multi Racing Chapionship, the name itself is boring. As one of the early racing games this title chose to be more about looks than substance. The games premise is the ability to drive on either paved or dirt roads, whatever to your liking. The dirt road is of course shorter. Choose either several trucks or cars each with its own handling and speed characteristics. There are an amazing 3 courses available! In the following scores I'm going to break down the core parts of the game.

Graphics: 6/10
The levels are in one word beautiful. From driving up hill on mountains to coursing downhill on snow, the game offers a healthy amount of variety so nothing really gets dull. The cars are all sharp and well drawn, much better than other racing games. Of course, there weren't many to compare. Unfortunately the good news stops there. Whenever there's more than 1 car next to you the game slows down to a crawl. The same can be said when smoke appears from your opponents. There's also an unhealthy amount of fog in the game with some bad pop up in the background. The physics are also very poor. Whenever you hit a barrier, or anything for that matter, your car will bounce off in the opposite direction leaving you in a dead halt.

Sound: 2/10
Now for the real killer of the game. The sound can best be described as annoying. No beats or rhythm of any kind cause the music to just sound like noise. Like static you will almost instantly want to turn off the sound. So I guess it can't get much worse than the music, wrong. The announcer/navigator is so horrible, that it will give me a headache just writing it. The only reason the sound does not get a 1, is because the engines while not varied, sound decent, and often make you want to just rev your engine.

Gameplay: 4/10
Hey I bought this game so I might as well play it. With 3 courses to choose from this game can get old fast. There is a easy, medium, and hard course all very well laid out and varied, with plenty of shortcuts. Mirror tracks and cars are also available to be unlocked adding to some but not much replay value. The cars can all be costomized from aerodynamics to gear ratios. You can set it to your liking, which is funny because almost all the settings for both the cars and trucks are nearly identical to each other. The game offers real time environmental conditions. From dusk can turn night, and from night comes the foggy morning, very kewl effect.

Control: 7/10
Not bad at all. Some may complain of it, but that's only because they gave up on it. If it wasn't for one car, that is both fast and maneuverable, this game would have scored a 3. After adjustments to each car is made, the end result is not perfect, but definitely playable. The analog controller is super responsive. Unfortunately, the one car I described above happens to be the only car that's worth playing. Everything else is just crap.

Overall: 5/10
More of a show piece for the 64. Other than the graphics, it fails in almost every other aspect of what makes a descent game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/02, Updated 06/24/02