Auto Modellista

"A mixed blessing for the racing fan"

Graphics - 9

Now this is cell shading. The graphics strike a nice balance between being overstyled and cartoonish. All the cars are faithfully reproduced and extra detail is paid for things such as air scoops and rims. A neat effect in the game is engine backfire, in which a puff of black smoke and flame accompanies the loud pop. The tracks are works of art, yet the Akagi and Rokko mountain tracks are the best looking of them all.

Sound – 6

This is one of my only real big problems with Auto Modellista. The music is lovely and varied, but the sound is nothing to write home about. A good portion of the cars all sounds the same, a tinny high pitched whine at all times. The Suzuki Cappuccino has the high-end audio of the engine drop out somewhere around 7000 RPM in 5th gear. This loss of audio stays that way through the rest of the acceleration in gear. I’m not aware if this is common for the real thing or not, but it is slightly annoying to suddenly lose your ability to gauge the car by engine noise.

The announcer is cool and amusing for all of about 5 minutes, and then he just gets on your nerves. Worse yet, he can’t be shut off. ARGH.

Game Play - 7

Racing is at the same time both highly enjoyable and frustrating as Capcom did not include analog support for the buttons. Since Auto Modellista is an arcade racing game, this choice does make sense. On the flipside, why couldn't they have added analog support? Sure would have helped with the mountain courses.

Car physics is another area of questionable design. There is a strange quirk with all the cars where you can actually pull constant donuts in a perfect circle, but your engine RPM's stay at idle the entire time. While in this perpetual donut one would think they could just steer left or right and get out of it like in any other racing game. Nope, the physics in this game keep you in the donut until you let off the gas. Go figure.

Customization is one of the biggest hooks in Auto Modellista. From the moment you begin ''Garage Life'' you can tweak just about anything from the style and layout of your garage to what sticker you'd like on your front bumper. Want to have a screaming yellow zonker colored Civic Si? Done. Want people to realize your Miata is made by Mazda? Slap a big Mazda logo on the side. The ability to make your own logos through a nicely equipped sticker editor is a major plus.

Without a doubt, the true blue meat of the game is online play. Any halfway decent player can shotgun through the offline mode in a matter of a few hours. Online play is where it's at as 8 players can race on the City and Circuit tracks, and 4 at a time can race on the Akagi and Rokko mountain races. Due to Auto Modellista having a broadband only connection lag is kept remarkably low and the races are very smooth with no real warping. Sega's SNAP (Sega Network Application Protocol) powers the online portion and does a fine job of it. After a race you have the ability to save the replay. It plays back smoothly, as if the race was run right off your local console! How cool is that?

Club mode online allows players to meet others in a parking lot setting to show off their cars. Players can also chat and trade cars to others. These cars become “rental cars”, in which the player has no ability to modify the car at all, just race it.

Controls - 8

The controls are quick and responsive for all cars (almost to a fault) when combined with the non-analog gas and brake buttons mentioned above. I've seen some people complain about how horrible these cars handle, and while I agree at times the physics of the game does make for some pretty interesting handling. I've found that with proper tuning these issues are almost nullified.

Replay - 8

Auto Modellista has two very big things going for it -- smooth and easy online play, and customization of the game. The drawbacks are issues that really should have been taken care of in alpha or beta. However, they don’t ruin the gameplay, and really is more of a minor quibble.

Overall - 8

If you’re looking for a Gran Turismo 3 killer, look elsewhere. If you want a fun arcade styled racing game with online support, Auto Modellista can fill that need.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/03, Updated 03/31/03