Movie tie-in #2: Star Wars - Episode 1 - Racer

(Nintendo 64, 1999)

Despite the fact that Star Wars fans went to town on The Phantom Menace on its release, the huge draw of the title meant that video game fans were to be treated to a cash-in based on the license. Luckily enough, with it being the Star Wars franchise, the game was developed by LucasArts, who had a pretty solid reputation for not just licensed products, but their own original titles, also.

Releasing the same month that George Lucas shat the film onto cinema screens, the game took a much more enjoyable approach than had been previously taken with Star Wars games. Super Nintendo fans will remember the fun (if not frustrating) games that came out in the early-to-mid 90's, that mixed platforming elements with other mode 7 styled sections, to varying degrees of success. These games followed the basic plot lines of the films, for better or worse. This time around, instead of treating us to a mixed bag of platforming and shooting, the developers decided to stick to the one interesting part of the film; the pod racing.

The game is fairly straight forward: select your player, select your pod to race in, then launch yourself at mind-bending speeds around a variety of courses. You get a choice of 23 different vehicles throughout the game, and 25 tracks to race on, altogether. The controls are surprisingly great, and really are quite forgiving in parts, despite the speed and floaty design of the vehicles.

The graphics are actually great, as it requires the expansion pak to give more detail to textures, resulting in a game that looks shockingly good for its age. The frame rates in the earlier stages are solid, too, with minimal fogging to hid poor draw distance. Sadly, the same can't be said in some of the later stages, in which the tracks are much longer. Here you will experience pop up and some horrible moments of frame loss due to the amount of information coming at you. It can be quite distracting on one of the tracks in particular, as it features tunnels and moments where you simply have no idea on where the hell you are supposed to be driving. More often than not, you will crash in these moments, but crashing doesn't mean a total loss of the race, and you will learn the courses quickly enough if you play it a few times.

The game also has great music (no surprise really) and pretty great voice acting. The cut scenes are nice, too, with some nice moments of humour here and there. The main mode in the game is definitely the single player, but the two player option is quite nice with the split screen. Textures and frame rates look good in split screen too, though the problems in some of the later stages can be made worse with the smaller screen.

Overall, the game is great, and still holds up surprisingly well. The sense of speed is fantastic, and definitely gave the likes of WipeOut and F-Zero a run for their money. The game was also ported to the Dreamcast, though sadly it didn't receive any increase in textures or frame rates, which is a pity. If you are a fan of the Star Wars franchise, then this one is worth picking up. It's great to see a solid game coming from a shit-fuck of a film.