Rumble Racing

"Nothing mind-blowing, but the closest thing to Mario Kart on the PS2"

Introduction-

Rumble Racing is a racing game in the vein of Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing, only with Micro Machine style cars instead of karts with franchise characters. The game originated on the PS1 as NASCAR Rumble, but the PS2 version is sans license.

Gameplay

The gameplay is familiar if you ever played a kart racing game (and who hasn't played one?). You race around a track using zany power-ups to dispatch your enemies if need be, or as a means for defense, or a way to boost your speed. The meat and potatoes of the one-player mode is Championship mode, which is a 3-to-4 race tournament with points. Finishing in first overall will unlock another tournament, another car, and another track.

The cars handle smoothly with a nice range of motion. Pulling off stunts (to give an instant speed boost) is relatively easy; you just need to hold R2 and hold a direction to flip your car and make sure to land on all four wheels.

Rumble Racing doesn't innovate, but that doesn't mean it dips in quality. The gameplay is nice and smooth and the power-ups and stunts are crucial to victory in the game, which is essential in a game like this. I also like the de-emphasis of catch-up AI; vets of MK64 and even Need for Speed Underground knows how this work. You can have a huge lead over your opponents when the AI gives an auto-boost to other cars and finds a way to screw you over while you are in the lead. Most people like that unpredictability, but I'm not one of them; why should I be punished for being the best on the track? Luckily, Rumble Racing does stray from that frustrating tradition. If you have a lead, you can hang onto it if you use shortcuts and avoid attacks.

The one problem is that unlike most kart games, the cars here are not evenly balanced. Some cars, like Silver Streak and Cataclysm, easily trump the others. I would've preferred if all the cars were evenly balanced out, especially since you can't see the cars' stats and attributes in two-player mode.

Graphics/Sound

Rumble Racing came out during the first year of the PS2's life and it shows. Outside of the awesome Twister power-up, in which it darkens the entire sky over the whole track, nothing stands out. There is nothing in this game the Dreamcast couldn't do. There is an upside to the simplistic graphics, however, and that is a permanent 60 fps speed, even in two-player, so I'll definitely take a speed-over-graphics trade-off.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the look of the cars and tracks. I mentioned in the intro that this game had a prequel on the PSOne as NASCAR Rumble. Part of that game's appeal was the idea of playing a kart racer with NASCAR drivers and tricked-out NASCAR stock cars. Alas, without the NASCAR license, the cars and tracks look and sound utterly generic, giving it a budget-title feel. Furthermore, outside of commentary by "Animaniacs" star Jess Harnell (which surprisingly is not annoying), the sound and music is also as bland and forgettable as vanilla ice cream.

Replay Value

The game does offer a lot of tracks and cars, and a lot of them have to be unlocked, so this game has a lot of shelf life as a one-player game. The AI gives you a good challenge without being cheap, so this game will be spinning in your PS2 for some time if you want it to.

Overall

The graphics and sound notwithstanding, Rumble Racing does a solid job of providing a Mario Kart experience on the PS2. While certainly not in the category of some of the arcade racers on the PS2 like the NFS series (Underground and Hot Pursuit) and Burnout, this game will satisfy that Mario Kart itch you have if you don't own a GameCube.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/05