The Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home

"The Dukes would never have survived this game."

Years and years ago, a show called The Dukes of Hazard made it's debut on CBS. The show starred Bo and Luke Duke (except for that one awful season with Coy and Vance) who were constantly ruining Boss Hogg's schemes with the aid of Uncle Jesse, Daisy Duke (who made us all feel funny although it would be a few years before we figured out why), and the General Lee, a 1963 Dodge Charger which was, to many, the real star of the show. The point of the show was that there was no point to the show. Boss Hogg would come up with a scheme which would be foiled by the General Lee jumping a lot of things (ditches, cars, etc.), a LOT of police cars getting trashed, and the Duke boys punching people out in the end. Well, Southpeak has taken us back for a visit to Hazzard County in their latest release.

The plot of the game is fairly simple and somewhat convoluted at the same time. Uncle Jesse gets kidnapped while taking the mortgage payment to the bank. Bo and Luke save him and barely get the mortgage payment in before Boss Hogg starts foreclosure procedures on the Duke farm. This persuades the Duke boys to try to enter the overland race to win enough money to pay off the mortgage but a shadowy figure from Uncle Jesse and Boss Hogg's past comes back and.... Well, you see what I mean. I give kudos to the development team for capturing the flavor of the show in the plot of the game where one simple goal turns into a convoluted plot with complications aplenty which somehow gets wrapped up neatly by the end of the game.

I have mixed feelings about the FMV. Recently, there have been a number of protests concerning the confederate flag being linked with racism in the South. Given that the General Lee has a big confederate flag on it, I guess that this would make it a big Klanmobile. This would actually be a plus because this would mean that Bo and Luke would have hoods over their faces. Yes, the facial drawings are that bad. The characters only superficially resemble the cast from the show. Fortunately, the rest of the FMV isn't bad and it does an excellent job of drawing you into the game. Another plus for the game is the voice acting. The developers got many of the original cast to do voice-overs for the game. The ones that they couldn't get, they did an excellent job of casting. All in all, despite the fact that everyone's faces look like they were playing too close to the thresher, I have to give the FMV a thumbs up.

Since you can't watch the FMV forever, we get to the actual game itself. The driving is not bad but it's not great either. First off, there is no such thing as a powerslide. The cars slow down so much if you just take your thumb off the accelerator that you will never have to use the brakes in this game. If you are adventurous enough to try the brakes, you will see your car go from 90 to 0 in under a second which causes one of the Duke boys to go through the windshield, messing up their faces more. (Okay, no, they don't but I just can't get over how bad their faces look. Didn't the FMV artists ever watch the show?) The steering is fair to good but it could have been tightened up some. As it is, you will find that mastering the steering is a slightly steeper learning curve than most racers but still achievable. The other issue is that, on the jumps, the General Lee has a tendency to flip over in the air to land on the roof of the car. The game resets the car fast enough but it can be frustrating to hit the jump exactly dead on and still manage to corkscrew into an upside-down position.

The missions in this game mostly fall into one of three categories. The first is that you are trying to win a race which involves beating all of the cars involved in said race. The second type of mission is that you have to get to your destination in a certain amount of time. The third is somewhat reminiscent of the missions in Driver where you have to pull someone over by slamming into their car. The last two mission types have other cars ramming your car in order to cause enough damage to wreck your car. The AI of the police and of the bad guys is, much like the steering, fair to good. Trying to dodge the police is like trying to dodge a missile that is locked onto your car. The police will make a beeline for your car, trying to run it off the road. However, it does this without any finesse like trying to cut you off or making your car fishtail. They just drive straight at you and try to ram you and that is it for offensive tactics.

Another point that should be mentioned is the extremely limited number of tracks for this game. Bo and Luke just drive over the same tracks throughout the game. While this does create a coherent picture of Hazzard County, this will undoubtedly disappoint the racing enthusiasts who look forward to having a wide variety of tracks to race on. While they try to change the tracks up some by occasionally allowing you to drive a different car besides the General Lee, some extra tracks would have been appreciated with this game.

At this point, it seems appropriate to say something about the two-player mode of the game. It sucks. Yup, that's about the size of it. In the head-to-head racing, the control seems to slip down a notch. Also, given that the story is such a major part of the fun factor of the game, merely racing head-to-head just doesn't have as much appeal as it would in other games with better control. The other two-player game, Run the Jug, suffers from awful controls, horrible field of vision and just an utter pointlessness to the whole thing. To be honest, just ignore the entire two-player aspect of the game altogether.

So, given the horrid two-player mode and the limited number of tracks, it might come as a surprise to hear that I really liked this game. The reason is that this game is FUN!! Too many games today do everything technically right but neglect the fact that, if the game isn't any fun, then it doesn't matter what else you do right. If you're looking for the next Driver, this is not it. To be honest, this is more like a warm-up before you play Driver. However, if what you're looking for is a fun driving game with an actual storyline, you owe it to yourself to give Dukes a rental. If it were not for the unsalvageable two player mode, I would put this game into the mid-8s. As it is, I give the Dukes a 7.7 which rounds out to an 8.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/06