Apex

"So much potential wasted"

Instead of just being another generic racer, Apex wanted to be original. In a way they succeeded, but they failed where it mattered most. The gameplay.

Now here is the gimmick they had, and its a pretty good one too. You take the lead in a new car manufacturing company. Your job is to design (well you just get to pick) new cars and take them out into races and win. If you win the races then people will buy your car. One nice touch is that you get to pick your company's logo from a wide assortment of logos. The concept car designs are very chic and stylish. Now here is where we get to the problems.

The developers wanted a nice mix between sim and arcade style racing, problem is that they failed to achieve it. The physics of the cars are very poor and loose. Controlling the cars are tough to handle since is handles like a racer from 1980. The rigid and sluggish controls ruin an otherwise excellent racer. I'll get to the finer points in a sec, but lets finish up the problems first.

Alright so the handling is poor, now we get to the AI. The AI for your opponents is not good at all, the cars all cuddle together, so it makes it easy for you to ram them into corner in a ninety degree turn to take the lead, another annoyance is that you'll always start last (yeah I know this is the same in every other racer but it hurts with this one). This is a problem because its not until the first hard turn that you'll actually have a chance at the lead. Now i can't remember how many times I've hit into a railing on the side to make a turn, the poor poor physics ruin this game from becoming a huge hit.

For example the game has licensed cars, a good amount of them, now these cars are also in different games. Comparing the physics and handling of a car found in Apex to that of Sega GT 2002 (the Elipse in this case) is vastly different and much more better in Sega GT, as a sim. Now taking a car from Apex and comparing it to Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2, the latter come out with much better results as an arcade racer. And finally comparing it to project gotham racing, pgr's car handling is also much better in terms of a hybrid racer. The level design is outstanding however, and it is a shame that the clunky controls brought it down.

The visuals in the game are very nice, the cars look very good, and the concept cars look killer, I wouldn't be too surprised if some companies looked and emulated some of the concept cars here. Levels look great, clean, would be the right word, very clean. There aren't and muddy textures, very nice lighting and reflections, although some shadows seem to be prerendered. Now by saying the game is clean, I mean to say while it looks very good there isn't much sparks or smoke. The cars to show the damage they take and it too looks good although there have been better damage in the GTA games.

The game's main mode (the dream mode where you take on the role of the head of a car company) forwards itself with real-time cut scenes, very nice looking character models and good lip syncing are found here.

The sound is nice, average, the cars roar as they should, good music is found, nothing too memorable. The voice acting in the cut scenes are very nice too.

There is plenty of replay value with cars and courses to unlock and design (pick). So all in all its actually a really original racer with great visuals that were bogged down by the shaky physics and sluggish controls. Methinks the testers of this game and the person in charge of the physics were napping when the game was being made. I hope a sequel is made with improved physics and handling, if it is then the game would be an awesome racer in your library, although is isn't now.

Gameplay 5
Graphics 9
Sound 7
Replay 7

It definetly isn't worth 50 bucks, considering the problems and ease. But $20 is fine, 30 if your desperate for a racer.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/03, Updated 07/24/03