Stunt Race FX

"Fun. Light Hearted. Starfox's little sister"

Introduction

(Being based in the UK, I am using the UK names for the games mentioned, I believe that the US equivalents are FX Trax and Starfox. (Interestingly, Starfox was renamed here as Starfox was copyrighted for a German product which was never produced. However that has now changed shown by Starfox Adventures))

Stunt race FX can probably be best thought of as Starwing’s little brother or sister. It shares some of the style, most notably the three dimensional graphics, based upon the FX chip. There are references made to Starwing within the game itself, which you are sure to notice. However, the game is a lot more light hearted, and involves no shooting, no team mates and just a little bit of barging other cars out of the way.

Here’s a bit of history about the game, if you don’t want to read it and just want the review, skip down to Gameplay now. FX Trax was first shown in a very depressing time for Nintendo. They had recently abandoned the fabled SNES CD Drive (co-developed with many partner companies, including Phillips and Sony, who probably took some of the SNES drive research work to make up the Playstation.) The console market was under increasing pressure from the 3D graphics of computers and the demand for a new and better system, so needed something to hold them up at the CES show. Starwing had provided a big boost the year before, and they needed another great product. The game wasn’t completed at the time, and there were a lot of problems. Nintendo rarely showed uncompleted games, and FX Trax was disappointing, although the problems that were evident at the show were ironed out before release.

As with Starwing, the masters of the Super FX chip, Argonaut were involved in the production of this game, on the technical side. Argonaut also helped other developers of the Super FX games. I won’t go into them, as you can probably find stuff about them online, and this is a review, not an FAQ.

Gameplay

Think Starwing on wheels. To elaborate, the game offers you a choice of three vehicles to race with. There is a formula one style hi tech car, a 4 by 4 jeep thing and a coupe. Obviously, each of these has different characteristics. The formula one car has a high top speed, but is easily damaged. The jeep has slow acceleration and top speed, but can survive all but the hardest knocks. The coupe has a balance of these. In addition there are two special vehicles. In the time trail mode (more later), you can also elect to drive a motorbike, which is obscenely fast, can’t stand much crashing, but will bounce around the course in a crazy fashion and in my opinion is the most fun. In the bonus rounds between the main competition mode, you can drive an articulated lorry, which is fun, but the camera angles make it hard to see the course, and the level mostly consists of holding boost and smashing around the course in the most impossible way. But these vehicles aren’t your regular style. They have cutesy eyes and are all made up of polygons that wobble around. If you hit a wall, the parts will all expand out from the centre. Should you get full damage, the vehicle will break up, leaving a sorry pair of eyes looking back at you until the pieces have all re formed around you.

There are a variety of different camera angles, as is the norm nowadays, but was a new feature at the time. If you elect to use the inside view, you get no instrument panel, but as the vehicle doesn’t have to be drawn as you go around the course, it goes a whole heap faster, ideal if you’re a bit of a speed freak and find the relatively slow pace a little pedestrian.

As you make your way around the courses, you have two types of pickups to make, a boost and a damage restore, which refill the relevant bars. The boost can be used at any point, and often winning a race can depend on whether or not you manage to hit all of the boost refills rather than any particular driving skill. But, as has already been established, this game doesn’t intend to be totally realistic, so this doesn’t matter all that much.

When you fire up the game, the Nintendo logo appears, accompanied by a cute little horn sound. Then a dramatic picture of the vehicles appears and the title drops from the top. Following from here you reach the main menu. From here you can choose one of four options: Speed Trax, Stunt Trax, Free Trax and Battle Trax. Speed Trax is the main bulk of the game, otherwise known as a championship. You then choose your vehicle and then the set of circuits you want, novice, expert or master. Each consists of four courses with an optional lorry driving after two courses. Each course lasts for three laps and are set over many different terrains, affecting speed and handling. At the end of the race, your remaining time is stored and brought on to the next level. Of course, out to stop you are the other three racers, each of the different types of car. Should you achieve a position of third or better, you will qualify and taken to the summary where your time for that level is recorded. This is then measured against the previous best time. Your times are accumulated at the end of the series and this is what determines whether you clear or have to retry. The bonus round with the lorry gives you a chance to gain an extra 2 seconds for every gate you drive through (like a slalom) and if you get all the way around the circuit, you will win an extra life in case you fail to get third or better.

Next is the Battle Trax. This is the two player. I personally haven’t played this a lot. The screen is dwarfed by the instrument panel, so each player has a very small view area. This makes it a lot less fun. Ironically, a similar problem was evident in the multiplayer of Lylat Wars (Starwing 64), where some cross pollination obviously took place. You aren’t losing out if you never touch this, as, the rest of the game makes up for the poor quality of this feature.

The Speed Trax is where you can get your hands on the motorbike. According to contemporary reviews in a SNES magazine, getting a best time on every time trial course with the bike will unlock it for the main game, although I haven’t been able to achieve this. Basically Speed Trax is a time trial, good for practise, and for avoiding the sometimes annoying computer players.

The Stunt Trax is an excellent feature. This consists of four courses where the objective is to make it over the obstacles, collect stars, and to get to each checkpoint before the time runs out. The only problem is that dodgy collision detection can result in crashing into the checkpoint, getting stuck and then failing to turn around in time. When you finish, the number of stars collected and the time are recorded, both go into making a league table of your best attempts. Battery back up is used here to save the times, which makes it good for easily comparing your skill at the game.

One of the things that gives this game a real plus for me is the various events that occur over or around the track. The Loch Ness Monster watches the racers, the Arwing from Starwing flies over, and the Nintendo challenger lorry drives swiftly over the track in the first course. The courses are decorated with posters of Kirby, Mario and Starwing all around. It should be pointed out that apart from one, none of these actually affect your vehicle, but they are nice touches.

Graphics

The FX chip set the world alight when it was released, however times really have moved on since then, and it would be totally unfair to compare it to current games. They are a lot more colourful than those of Starwing, and it is evident to a certain extent that the chip has been altered between the games. If you like this style, they are good, and FX chip games look nothing like their sprite based competition on the SNES.

Sound

Tunes are nice and cheerful, the very Christmassy style of the snow level music stands out. Engine noises have never been recreated perfectly, and here they are just buzzing noises, but if you don’t like them then don’t leave the sound up and put some other music on. You can easily play it without sounds. Noises on the menus perfectly suit the cheerful style with little plink noises on choosing your options.

Playtime/replayability

This may not take all that long to play, probably a week to finish the championships unless you are a very quick learner, and the Stunt Trax will take ages to master. Replayability is very high for this game though. It’s nice to play through again just to see the later levels, even if you can blitz the first couple. It doesn’t matter that you’ve seen the levels before, they are still just as fun to thrash around in.

Final Recommendation

I really like this game. It’s not the classic that Starwing was, but is a fun bit of relief. It may not be the longest game ever made, it may not have characters to relate to especially, but for me it just has the X factor that makes it enjoyable without it being too challenging.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/19/03, Updated 06/19/03