F1 ROC: Race of Champions

"A pretty good attempt at an F1 career game"

Exhaust heat deserves a lot more recognition than it gets. I bet that very few people will have heard of it. It is one of the best F1 games on the SNES, second to Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing, which is fairly widely known as the best F1 game on the console.

Graphics – 9/10

Everything looks very nice for a SNES. It is all very colourful, and sprites are drawn well. I particularly like the pit stop animation – this is done very well and you can see every mechanic doing their job on the car. The tracks are done in mode 7, which means that the track is emi-3D, i.e. a 3D track without any rises in ground height at all, like F-Zero.

The overall presentation is very good. Menu's are very eye-catching, and the title screen, although quite basic, very good to look at.

Sound – 8/10

These are some of the best sounds from and F1 game I have heard on the SNES. Engines sound almost like the real thing. The crash sounds are quite good, especially the tyres squealing after you spin your car. When you hit a wall, the impact sounds good, but the sound repeats itself far too many times.

The music in this game is not bad, but then again, not all that good. It is not something that will make you want to put it on a CD and listen to it over and over, but it is not something that will make you want to put your TV on mute.

Gameplay – 8/10

The idea of the game is that you race as yourself, for one particular team all of the time. You race through several seasons, trying to win the world championship. You earn cash depending on how well you do in the race, and you can spend that money on improving your car. There are lots of parts of the car that you can improve, including tyres, engine, chassis, suspension, and diffuser.

As well as racing in the career mode, there is a practice mode in which you can drive in a single race, on the track of your choice. You can spend the money you earn in career mode in perfecting your car setups here, too.

The AI in this game is better than most other racing games on the SNES. They will not react to your car, but they tend to race more like human players. Instead of roaring around the track at full pelt, they slow down for corners more realistically.

Difficulty – 4/10

This is where the game loses most of it's overall score. It is very, very easy to win the race, even without improving your car at all. And to make matters worse, there is no difficulty change option. Despite the low difficulty of this game, it is still very fun, and still satisfying.

Replay value – 7/10

The career mode goes on forever, without a fixed amount of seasons, which is a good thing, seeing as most F1 career games only have about 4 or 5 seasons then you have to stop.

You can keep coming back to this game. You can try to improve your track records, or just keep dominating in the career mode. Although there is a lack of different modes, you will still keep coming back, as it is so fun. But after a while, the fun will wear off, and it is likely you will not come back for a long time.

Reminders:
Graphics – 9/10
Sound – 810
Gameplay – 8/10
Difficulty – 4/10
Replay value – 7/10

Positive points:
+ Great graphics and sound
+ Good presentation
+ One of the best F1 games on the SNES
Negative points:
- Very easy
- After a while, you will not come back for a long time

If you are a fan of racing games, and have a little bit of spare cash, go and buy this game, it is very cheap now and will be one of the best F1 games you can get for this amount of money. But don't go out and search for it, there are a lot of other, better F1 games out there now.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/05