Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition

"They fixed the graphics, but they broke the control; stick with the original"

Daytona USA: CCE has to go down, for me anyway, as one of the biggest dissapointments for the Sega Saturn. As a big fan of the original Saturn Daytona, I was glad to hear about an updated version with better graphics, less draw-in, and more tracks. This was one of my most anticipated games of the year. However, after a few hours of playing, I just wanted to return to the original.

Daytona USA: CCE is the updated verison of the Saturn port of Daytona USA, which is probably one of the best arcade racers ever. The glitchy, choppy graphics of the original Saturn Daytona are all but gone, and the game uses a new, brighter color palette to give the game a richer feel. You have a very large selection of cars to choose from, and there are two new, well designed tracks added to the original three.

Like I said before, the graphics are the major selling point of Daytona CCE. While the draw-in is about the same, the smoother frame rate and overall more solid feel of the game really helps. The sound is about the same as the original Daytona. However, the music is completely changed, as many people complained about the "Roooooooling Staaaaaaaart!" singing in the music. So they basically remixed the tunes and removed the vocals. I actually enjoyed the original Daytona's music, so this was a slight disappoinment (however, as with most racers, I turned the music off within an hour of play.)

Well, so far, so good, right? Well, the thing that really ruins this game for me is the control. Although both analog and digital options are available, neither seems to work that well. The main problem with the control is that it just doesn't feel right compared with the original. The big appeal of Daytona is the easily executed powerslides and the sense of speed. However, in Daytona CCE, not only is the sense of speed lessened, but the programmers decided to add some "realism" by tightening up the slides so that they are almost impossible to execute without spinning out or losing too much speed. While I can handle realism in a racing game, this is supposed to be an arcade racer, and the game can't seem to decide if it wants to be a sim or an arcade game. There is a thin line between sim and arcade, and Daytona CCE tries to walk that line, but fails. If this game had kept the original feel, rather than trying to "fix" it, I would have scored it an 8 of possibly a 9.

If you've never played a Daytona game before, you might enjoy this incarnation, but if you're used to the old arcade feel, just stick to the original. Daytona CCE, while improved in some areas, has been compromised in the area where it really counts; the gameplay.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99