Galaxy 5000

"The "Battletoads" of NES racers. Just as cool, just as fun, and just as hard!"

Next to SCAT, this has to be one of the best ignored late NES releases yet! Basically, it's the year 5000, and those darned liberal Democrats have so undermined family values that alien parents can't even stop their kids from buying a turbocharged space racer and blasting around courses rimmed by cannons and spikes. It's a bleak world, I tell ye...

...but the GRAPHICS of it are fun to look at! 3-D racing in the style of RC Pro-am, but with much better sprite detail and multi-leveled racetracks! In between levels, you get to see a cool picture of your craft with all the damage it received during the race(and then get to watch as that damage slowly dissipates as you repair it.) With four players, the racing action gets fast and furious, and unfortunately on the NES that means a lot more flashing than usual. I'm sorry, I know that the graphics are quite an achievement, but if we can only see those 51st century racers in a ghostlike, flickering state, the gain is somewhat negated. Still, it doesn't make the game unplayable, and the

SOUND, or rather, the voices, make up for it. Okay, I know it's annoying, but NES SFX rocks. Just because it's always fun to hear that poor little FM sound chip STRAINING to come up with something that sounds remotely like voices. Here, that thing gets quite a workload, with phrases such as ''Watch it!'' and ''Wuuuahhh!'' being belted out as fast as the in-game events dictate. Maybe that's how the alien drivers actually sound. Or maybe the cockpit voice recorder was a cheap knockoff stolen from the nearest McAsteroids. Whichever is true, have fun guessing what those dudes are trying to say...

while enjoying the awesome GAMEPLAY! There are nine tracks(representing the nine planets) and you race each track four times. Catch: the obstacles on the track change after every race. However, there are also bonus stars you can pick up(they look like sea urchins) which either give you money, repair your ship, or upgrade your weapon. Yep, you have a gun on the front of your ship, which besides being used to blast your opponents into oblivion, can also be used to level certain course obstacles. Sometimes bonus stars can be found under these things. In fact, this game's as much about exploration as it is about racing. You can sometimes make a lot more money by taking the time to collect all the credit tokens than by trying to finish first. The racing IS done for money, which has only two uses: Repairing your old ship or buying a new one. Don't waste your time, though...the money you don't make by winning races is the money your opponents do...and you don't want to be the only one on the block still driving the crappy Tomahawk while the rest of the dudes are blowing away your little rear in their Stilletos. Remember, too, that running off the edge of the course(this'll happen a LOT) too many times will cause you to lose that shiny new craft you saved up for. Still, in spite of (or perhaps because of)all these challenges, the game remains immensely fun. You can jump to take shorcuts over separated pieces of track, run your enemies into the mines, blast the cannon that's been bothering you, and generally have a very FUN time out on the track. There are two control modes, too: Alpha, where Up goes up and Down goes down, and Beta, where Up merely accelerates and you use the sides of the control pad to steer. And, as I recall, a two player mode. So if you can find it, buy it! And definitely try it out emulated.

Nintendo logic: Assuming that the laws of gravity don't apply in space, what causes your ship to suddenly drop off into the void? Do they have giant magnets underneath the track to keep people from cheating? Or did that stupid driver forget that the same flight control system that can fly him from planet to planet can be used to cut across the places where the track ends? We may never know...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/16/00, Updated 05/16/00