Road Rash 3D

"Road Rash 3D heads a different direction than the originals...whether that's good or bad is hard to say."

Being one of those people that got a hold of the original Road Rash for both PC and the Playstation, as well as all three of the Sega Genesis games, I was considerably enthused to hear that the Road Rash series would make a jump into the 3-dimensional world. Little did I know, it would also completely change the essence of the series, in a way that I'm not sure I necessarily like.

Let me explain it as such -- as far as the actual racing goes, I have few complaints...except for the fact that the handling tends to be a bit too twitchy, and the concept of doing wheelies over cars to keep from getting hit is a little too gimmicky for me. However, the amount of sheer speed that this game presents is a definite plus-- I felt like I was flying along at a pretty good clip, although it made me feel a little too "out-of-control" in some spots.

What's the REAL big bummer here? Well, I think that the developers aimed too much to create a great racer, and forgot completely about the "rashin'"; in other words, the combat in this game felt much more like an afterthought instead of being pivotal to the experience, as it should have been. I was lucky to get in one or two hits per race -- and none of them made much of a difference. My past experiences with the Road Rash series have led me to savor those moments when I've gotten to clobber my opponent with chains, or a club, or whatever I could steal from another biker. Hell, sometimes I even ended up sending my opponents sailing into oncoming traffic, or I just clobbered them repeatedly until they fell from their bikes...and those were some seriously satisfying moments.
Road Rash 3D offers none of those traditional thrills, and that's a real crying shame, considering I thought that the series made the jump to 3D incredibly well. Road Rash : Jailbreak, the sequel to this game, does much better when it comes to the combat aspect, so I would have to recommend it over RR 3D in that respect.

As far as the soundtrack for this game goes, I can gladly say that it completely slaughters the horrible Sega Genesis soundtracks...as should have been expected. In the vein of the Playstation Road Rash, we are offered a bunch of tunes by up and coming rock bands, such as Sugar Ray, The Tea Party, and Kid Rock, among a few others. Not too shabby as a whole.
Graphically, this game suffers a little bit, but for a Playstation game I think it holds up incredibly well. The cutscenes however, are nothing but cheesy and unnecessary, showing the same drunken bikers and the occassional flash of a busty woman every once in a while...frankly, it's quite boring, and I think the Playstation Road Rash did much better.

Sadly, because Road Rash 3D offers nothing new in the racing department, and it doesn't follow the classic Road Rash formula, then I really can't recommend this game to anyone, unless you're looking for just a average/solid racer...and even then, why don't you go play Gran Turismo, for crying out loud?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/04