Road Trip

"What in blue hell...."

When you think of games that appear on a particular platform and they end up being priced immediately at the twenty-dollar range, you might find something good underneath a rough exterior. In this case, I found something that was a little odd, overly addicting and in the end, just an average racing game under a very simple shell. Racing games on the Play Station 2 usually run along the lines of Gran Turismo and Midnight Club Racing complete with flare and speed. Road Trip on the other hand really doesn’t do that and takes you back to a time where the only thing that mattered was the racing and not what kind of car you can buy.

Mini Racers…

When you first boot up Road Trip you will be greeted with something that reacts and seems to play just like an in-depth racing game complete with an upgradeable car and various racing venues. However, when you get into the game itself, you’ll find that the only real way to upgrade your car in small ways is to win races that range from very easy to almost impossible. You might be wondering at this point just where in the hell this demon spawn came from and why something like this exists, but the fun hasn’t even started yet. Finding your way around an impossibly large map, seeking out other vehicles that you can talk to and upgrades that you can use is what the game really consists of.

The actual racing is more or less a weeding through several different waves of cars that are in front of you. Unlike other normal racing games in which you start in a line up of six to ten cars, you’ll find that you’re in the field with ninety-nine other cars, all of which move faster and react better to the curves than you possibly can. After getting bumped around the track and crossing the finish line assuming you didn’t get nailed into a pillar and stuck, then you will be graded and be able to move onto the next seed. In hindsight, as I was being pounded into the pillars by every single car on the track after I couldn’t turn my car for a tight curve, I wondered what I could do to upgrade my car.

Upgrading your car requires you to win races and earn tokens that allow you to buy different parts at various locations throughout your little world. Oh, and as I’m thinking about it, whatever you might have seen on the cover of the game that might have made it look like you’re traveling the real world, is a bald-face lie. The upgrades come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from engine speed to turning ability, which I instantly bought in order to win some more races. However, once I’d gotten into the races again, I found that all of the cars moved faster and still handled better than my car did, which lead me to blankly staring at the screen while crushing the controller in my hands.

Control was another issue that I found to be rather displeasing from the first race to the last race and even moving around the world itself. All of the movements of your little car are stiff and unresponsive, which leads me to believe that someone was smoking a little too much weed the day they tested the overall speed of the game. As you’re moving through the world, it takes forever to make your little car turn and the braking is laughable at best considering you can stop on a dime, but can’t make a power stop or simple turn. Progressing through the stages really isn’t a problem though you might find that the analog sticks don’t quite make the car go the way that you want it to, especially in heavy traffic situations.

The Open Road…

As I was crushing my controller in my hand, I happened to take a look around the world that I was racing in and realized that there wasn’t much to look at. The wide open territories really aren’t all that detailed and if you’re not paying attention to the map at the lower portion of your screen, then you’ll find yourself looking at almost the same thing over and over again. The different cities that you go to do have a theme to them that are unique, but the lack of any other effects aside from a random encounter with a garbage truck that is driving through grassy fields, there isn’t anything special. The track layouts in the races are also done in the same simple fashion but you’ll find that the curves and turns are confusing if you’re ahead of the pack and running into the wall is the only thing that you can be sure of.

My Radio Is Busted…

Listening to tunes while you drive on any road trip is something that you need to do when you’re all alone and driving long distances. What Road Trip offers is two stations and they play the same tune with a little variation on it to give it something different depending on what you’re listening to. The find that I found during my play was that tapping my foot in conjunction with slamming my head on the coffee table created quite an acceptable beat to help me deal with the stress of driving in the middle of nowhere. The occasional beeping of a horn that my car was making only added a funky beat and I think that by creating the head slam concerto you will find something worth listening to. Either that, or you’ll pass out from your injuries, in either case, you’re better off listening to something on the CD player than you are this.

A Flat Tire…

Road Trip takes an interesting idea of running through an open world and not really giving you much of a fun trip to enjoy. You might find that with the lack of game play fairness and steep difficulty in the very beginning of the game is enough to make you run away screaming before you play for more than an hour. For the budget gamer, this is a title that you can enjoy without shelling out some serious money, though I doubt that any serious gaming store or even a movie rental place has this title available for the weekend driver. If you’re hard up for a racing game and need a fix, I suggest slapping your friend in the face and running away from them. It’s about the best kind of race that you’re going to get when you compare it to this title.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/03, Updated 03/03/03