AeroGauge

"Nice idea but not enough substance and poor challenge make it not worth buying"

I came across Aero Gauge for the first time at Hollywood Video back when the 64 was young, after reading the back I saw it involved flying cars and became interested enough to rent it. Maybe I did it because Back To The Future's Delorian always looked like a lot of fun to me or maybe I was just curious.

Graphics 7/10

Well they were just kind of there, these graphics were pretty average but the did do the job and things looked like they should and the cars were pretty sweet. Landscapes were interesting ranging from an Asian city type place to canyons and oceans, all four areas looked good for the time. Nothing amazed me then though and I know it wouldn't now.

Sound 6/10

The cars sounded pretty good for the most part with different engine sounds for each, however collision sounds were terrible and sounded fairly cheesy. What little music that existed sounded anywhere from ok to just plain lame, the music was completely unmemorable and average.

Gameplay 6/10

Enjoy it while it lasts because there's only four courses, however during the main game you have to play each course twice once to ''qualify'' and then the real race. The AI is pretty lame using a boost at the beginning to get ahead so it's hard to catch up but you can boost too if you know how making it easy. Once passed the other cars provide minimum resistance and rarely challenge you unless you crash into something and end up stopping, however this is very easy to avoid. The game never punishes you enough for crashing into stuff it hardly ever slows you down much. Worse yet only a tiny portion of your health is lost requiring about 20 crashes before you die, health is also easily recovered at certain points much like F-ZeroX only you really never need it. Options are very few with only four cars and one cup as well as a tiny multiplayer mode. About the cars, only four are there from the beginning they do have different stats but since the car with the highest top speed easily masters all the corners the other three are pretty pointless. More cars can be unlocked with a code but they are just clones of the original four anyway. All this and more make this game so small and easy you'll beat it in 45 minutes.

Story 2/10

Some corporation invents a new type of flying car so they create some races to advertise, pretty lame but it's a racer so story is about as important and noticeable as a single grain of sand in a desert.

Multiplayer 5/10

Small as the rest of the game it offers two player races on the four tracks, I'm giving it a low score because the 64 does have four controller ports and it isn't that great anyway. You will definitely not whip this out when your friends come over since other racers are more fun anyway.

Replay Value 2/10

You'll be having fun for a few hours but after that it's over, your looking at a two day rental at best with this.
Overall 4/10

Sorry but this game is so average and small that it just aint worth playing when you have Mario Kart and F-ZeroX around.

Rent or buy?

Rent it if you need too but with it's size why bother?

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/02, Updated 07/12/02