LONDON RACER - PlayStation FAQ by J Woodrow Version 1.1 - 20/04/2002 _________________________________________________________________________ ||\ | ||\\ | | |\| \\\\ \ ///|\ | | | |\ \\\\ \| | | | | |||||| || | | | | | | | | / //// | /||| | | | | | \ \\\\\ \ | | || \||||| \| | | | | | | | ////// /|| | | / | | | | || \\\\ \|| | |||||\ ||| | | | | |/ //// /| | | | | | | | | | | | | |\ \\\\ \ | \ \||||| || | | | | | //// /| | | | | | | |\ | | | | | | | | \ \\\ \|| |||||| | | | |/ //// /| | | | | | | | | | | ||| | | | |\ \\\\ \\ |||||/ | | | / ///// / /| | |/ //| | | | ||| | \\\\ | ||||| || | //// ///| | / /|||||||| ||||||\ \ | |\ \\\ |||||\ \|/ //// /| /||||||||||| ||||||||||||||\ |||||| /||||||||||||||||/ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||/ | | | \|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||/ / | | | | | | | |||||| /| | | | | | | | | | | ||| | | | | / //// || \|||| |\ \\\\ \|| | | | | | | | | | | | ||| | | | | ///// /|| |||||| \|\ \\\\ \| | | | | | | | | | | | ||| | | | / ///// /| | ||||||\ || | || |||\\\ \ || | | | | | | | | | | / ///// / | | | \||||| | | | | |\ \\\\\\ \| | | |\ | | | ||| / //// | | | | || |||||| || | | | | | |\ \\\\\ \| | |/ | | | | / //// /|| | | | | | |||||| || | | | | | | ||\ \\\\\ \| |\ | | | | //// /||||| | | | | \ \||||| |/ \| | | | || | / \ \\||||/\\ | |/ ///// // \\| ||// 88888888o 88 o88o 88 88 888o o888 88 88 8888888o 8888888888 88 88 88 888 88 88 88 88 88 888 88 88888888888 888888888888 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 888888 888888888888 88888 88888 8888 888 88 88 8888' 88 88 88 8888 88888 8888 88888 88888 8888 88888 8888 888888 o888888 888888888 88888 88888 88888 o88888 8888888 888888888 88888888 88888 o8888 8888888888 8888 888 o88888 88888 88888888888 88888 8888 8888 8888 88888 88888888 88888 8888 88888 8888 8888 8888 88888 888888888 88888 8888 88888 8888 8888 8888 88888 88888 88888 8888 88888 88888 888888888888 888888 88888 88888 8888 88888 88888 o888888888888 888888888 888888888 88888 88888 o88888 88888 o8888 88888 888888 888888888 o8888 88888 S P E C T A C U L A R R A C I N G I N A N D A R O U N D L O N D O N _________________________________________________________________________ LONDON RACER - PLAYSTATION Released: November 1999 Developers: Davilex Publisher: - [This game was released in the EU only] _________________________________________________________________________ C O N T E N T S _______________ INTRODUCTION PLAYING THE GAME 1 M25 SOUTH 2 LONDON CITY 3 COUNTRY ROUTE TO OXFORD 4 OXFORD 5 COUNTRY ROUTE TO LONDON 6 PARK AND PALACE 7 M25 SOUTH 8 THAMES CONCLUSION _________________________________________________________________________ I N T R O D U C T I O N _______________________ Red buses. Red phone boxes. Red pillar boxes. Black cabs. Polite policemen. This could only be London... London Through the Looking Glass! No people, no noise, no dirt, no graffiti, no tourists, no filthy pigeons, no filthy hot-dog vendors, no traffic lights... in fact, no traffic. No traffic? Almost! Yes indeed, this is some kind of Wonderland. The streets look familiar enough and all the famous landmarks you would expect to see in Europe's largest city are here - Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge and The Tower of London, The Bank of England and Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus (wot, no lions?), Trafalgar Square, Regent Street and Oxford Street, Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral among many others. The sun is shining, the roads are bare and invitingly wide and you are equiped with a meeeeean set of wheels... So what else can you do? Burn Rubber, Baby. The concept is certainly appealing. You have a choice of fast cars and the simple objective is to race around the streets of not only the capital, but also sections of its orbital Motorway and on out into the beautiful countryside via Windsor Castle and Stonehenge to and from the University City of Oxford. All along the way you have to battle against devious opponents and stay one step ahead of the law, evading speed cameras and patrol cars which seem to wait at every turn. Sound like fun? _________________________________________________________________________ P L A Y I N G T H E G A M E _____________________________ It IS fun, but you have to make some pretty major allowances. The list of driving games on the PlayStation is a very long one, and direct comparisons are fairly pointless. If you have either of the Gran Turismo or Driver titles, just about any Formula One game or anything in the driving genre from Codemasters, then you will be severely disappointed by this game if you are looking for a pure Driving Experience. This ain't it. But if you have ever dreamt of screeching through London's empty streets in a no-holds-barred race, with a Supercar at your disposal with the added bonus of giving the police the run-around, then this may be your best chance short of some seriously criminal activity! So let's get down to the important thing - what is the choice of cars? Compared to GT, extremely limited, but still... They all have daft names, so use your imagination: £ NIME ......... 9166 Ooh, let me guess... MINI? TRAFALGUAR ... 47000 I would think a JAG-U-ARE OPAL ASTER ... 14000 'VEUXHELL' ASTER in the UK, surely? BIETL ........ 19000 It's spelt fo-net-i-cally BWM .......... 30000 UMM... HORCH DD ..... 34000 A PORTIA of corsa (but it looks like a Trabant from behind) In time-honoured fashion, you start with the cheapest car and a small budget, and the idea is to tune your car to win races and earn more cash to upgrade and eventually purchase the better motors. For some reason, someone seems to have put a decimal point in the wrong place, and after only a couple of races you can afford everything, so that concept goes straight out of the window. The best thing is to forget the racing challenge and just admire the scenery as you swerve your way through roadblocks and roadworks, leaving a trail of flying cones and lamp-posts in your wake. The races are not difficult and you'll win as often as not with no trouble anyway. The backgrounds are certainly remarkable, if not entirely accurate, and the team at Davilex have done a bang-up job in giving London a unique atmosphere. I love the spoof names they have for those instantly- recognisable typical High Street stores - 'Wichwool' building society, 'Nixons' and 'The Kink' electrical stores and 'Pizza blr' restaurant. Branches of 'Diana's Diner' seems to occupy half of Oxford Street! They have certainly captured that authentic street scene of permanent roadworks on main routes and not a sign of a workman anywhere near them. The artwork is superb, if necessarily limited; as is shown by the repeated use of the same buildings in order to keep the memory overhead down. All the major landmarks are very impressively rendered and the road layout is fairly accurate if occasionally quite eccentric. This isn't supposed to be an a map of London however, and for most people the fun will be in just roaring down the main streets and negotiating all those bends at speed. For those who love racing, the scenery is incidental... which may be a problem, since the scenery is the best thing about this game in my opinion. The handling of all the cars is unremarkable. They make impressive engine noises and the tyres squeal in a most gratifying way, but the speedo seems a little eccentric at times. Get used to being stopped by the police every five minutes as well, although you have only two (improbably courteous) warnings before you are stopped a third time and the round is over. Watch out for your racing opponents - they'll flick you into a wall like an elastic band given half a chance, and they inflict massive amounts of damage with just a couple of hits. When your car is wrecked, then once again it is all over. There is a clever idea in the inclusion of roadside garages through which you simply drive at speed for an instant repair if your damage meter gets too high. You should spend your first prize money on a 'turbo' which can get you out of trouble quickly. Forget the cars in the garage, daft names or not - show me where can I buy a police car! No matter what you are driving and at whatever speed, they catch you easily, turbo or no. If you hit anything they ALWAYS ram your backside. You can't ram them and it's not always easy to drive around them although you clearly have enough room... And just what is that tripe they come out with when they pull you over? Page 37 of "So You Want to be a Policeman" says quite clearly that there is only one recommended script for a Traffic PC in this situation: "So this is YOUR car is it Sunshine? Well then, I suppose you won't have any trouble telling me the Registration Number, will you?" Instead you get: "This is your FIRST warning..." It sounds like your mate's Dad asking if he can explain the bottle of Pale Ale that seems to be missing from the cocktail cabinet. "This is your SECOND warning. One more and you're finished!" (Wooo-ooo! Get HER!) "This is your THIRD warning. You're coming with us." Back to the Videogame shop for a refund with any luck. Well, I don't want to be too hard on this game. It's like kicking a puppy. I say again that it isn't fair to compare it with AAA titles. Those have a bigger budget and better programmers, and that is probably reflected in the respective price of the games. Which is not to ignore the fact that there are some major flaws in this one... The whole game is plagued by 'seaming' and 'pop-up'. You would think there is an earthquake opening up the road, as trees flicker with lightning. Buildings spring out of nowhere and sometimes you wonder where you will drive next, until another piece of motorway appears beneath the wheels of the car floating in the distance ahead. You get used to this after a while and it even becomes quite endearing - seeing Buck House burst into view out of a clear blue sky as you belt along the Mall makes one quite proud to be British. The PlayStation version of London Racer seems glitchy too - sometimes you get 'stuck' to the pavement and have to crawl along at microspeeds until a helpful Copper rams your backside to unstick you. On several occasions on the London City run I somehow wound up on the other side of the buildings, and it is like a Magic Carpet ride as your car floats along an invisible road with only the distant background screen for company until you hear sirens and paper buildings pop up to let you know you have found your way back to the racetrack and you can burst through another wall to rejoin the action. Bizarre. The collision detection in any case is frankly ludicrous. You will hear crunching metal when there isn't anything within 10 feet, especially around trees. A few of these phantom hits added to the rest you'll be taking, and soon enough black clouds emit from the bonnet like Indian Smoke Signals and you'll have to switch to another view as you now can't see a bloody thing. Try the 'far' back view as at least then you'll see the Cops coming. They are like the Terminator: They absolutely will not stop - EVER!- until they spin pathetically and harmlessly across the other side of the road. You can't outrun them and you can't bash them out of the way. You can't even drive around them sometimes, as they seem to have an invisible forcefield which causes you to come smashing to a halt if you get within 10 feet or so. If you carry just a little bit of speed then they stay on the 'proper' side of the road, but if you stop or slow down too much they take the opportunity to bash you from behind. They pull up behind you and start issuing a stern talking-to even as the rest of the pack are crashing the lot of them aside to muscle through and race off while you are still detained! I mean, where's the Justice? Mind you, they don't seem to want to follow you the wrong way up a one- way street (because that's breaking the law isn't it?) They will still magically appear and bash into you if you somehow crash up there though. Cars and buses coming the other way are not your friends - if they can drift into your path at the last moment they will. Expect them to head your way going past any roadworks, especially if you have a police car on your tail. The only recommended avoiding action when you pick up the inevitable pursuer is to let him catch you quickly and stay just in the middle of the road and slightly to the right. He will overtake on the inside and pull across to block just that side of the road. Simple. Although the natural instinct is to burn around each track as fast as you can go, in fact it is sometimes better to enter into the spirit of the game and pace yourself against the other racers. They will slow down on approaching a waiting patrol car and cruise past as though butter wouldn't melt; go along with them and once you are a little way past, just open her up and you are off again. Only a few of the tracks reward full speed, and it will be a lot more of a challenge if you try to set yourself the target of not alerting a single patrol car and still maintaining enough speed to beat your opponents. Trickier than you might think. The masterstroke of the programmers is the inclusion of numerous Gatso speed cameras sneakily placed just where they'll catch you out. These are eminently destructible! Now, THAT is surely something we all want to do in real life, so load up the disc and here's your chance... _________________________________________________________________________ 1: M 2 5 S O U T H _________________ You start the game with a budget of £2000. Your car is a 'NIME' which even the cat can see is a Mini. You had me fooled there boys. (Just how much DOES an official licence cost?) Like all the other cars, this is impressively modelled and rendered, but very dull to drive. You might as well blow the entire budget on an upgrade, as pretty soon you'll have money coming out of your ears and nothing to spend it on. You can upgrade anything or everything but it doesn't make any difference - whichever car you choose it still handles like a pudding. I can say that, having driven on just about every major motorway across the UK, at all times of the day and night, from Aberdeen to Brighton, Cardiff to Kent; the worst motorway drivers without fear of contradiction are those on the M25. I don't know why, but I think it is because that motorway doesn't actually go anywhere but around London. Most drivers seem to be using it for short hops of a few miles, and having faced the frustration of 15mph stop-start driving to get to it, they leave common sense on the slip road and revel in the novelty of a motorway, just like they've seen on telly. You can actually see the chaos build as they shoot across to the fast lane (that's what that outside lane is, everybody knows that), and then race up behind other cars and start flashing their lights, and then when that lane becomes too congested with other Thickears they switch lanes to try to make headway (and they don't know a Left indicator from left luggage). In some parts that motorway is four lanes wide, and many times for no good reason I have found all four come to a halt. By then of course, Brain of Britain is long gone. Road rage? Show me the queue. How refreshing then, to find the M25 in this game to be about as busy as 6a.m. on Christmas morning. Just what we have always dreamed of, and almost worth the purchase price for this experience alone. It looks very convincing - close your eyes a bit and you could almost be there - so top marks to the development team for scenic authenticity. For this first level, the police don't seem interested as you blast by... In fact your opponents are the biggest hazard, as they certainly get a bit snippy when you pull in front and they will buffet you from behind and try to run you off the road. Use all that space on the opposite carriageway to cut the corners and stay clear of the others, and about the only things to watch for on the road itself are a couple of lane closures (apart from a peculiar glitch sometimes that seems like an invisible brick wall somewhere on the left at the start). Just keep an eye out for the roadsigns and pull over to the left in good time to clear the roadworks. You get a taste of things to come with that horrendous pop-up: trees march towards the horizon and also a police roadblock springs up out of nowhere just before the end. Keep your wits about you and you'll just win with probably the yellow Bietl a very close second. The chap who translated the 'Menue' must have a touch of dyslexia or a Chinese dictionary, as you are now awarded Price money. First place = £ 7500 Second = £ 5000 Third = £ 2500 Fourth = £ 1500 (This is with the standard NIME) Actually, you don't need to be too disappointed with your placing in any of the rounds, as you get 'bonus' money for doing something or other which far outweighs the Prize money. I'm not setting any challenges here (you don't need any tips or a proper walkthrough to finish this very simple game), but just to let you know what to expect, this is a typical Results board: POSITION : 1 TOTAL TIME : 02:13 PRICE MONEY : £ 7500 BONUS : £ 0 FINES : £ 000 NEW BUDGET : £ 9500 _________________________________________________________________________ 2: L O N D O N C I T Y ____________________ Oxford Street Centre Point Covent Garden Waterloo Bridge Westminster Bridge Parliament Square (incl. Big Ben) Trafalgar Square Piccadilly Circus Regent Street Oxford Circus You start this first street race on a suspiciously bare Oxford Street. Where are the pavements packed with confused shoppers and tourists and leafleteers and beggars and pickpockets, and the man holding a sign that says 'Golf Sale'? Where are the tacky Souvenir shops and the dusty 'Closing Down - Everything Must Go' signs and the rip-off 'Mock Auctions'? No sign of Selfridges or all those other world-famous stores down the Posh End either... This should alert you to the fact that we are not going to get the "Metropolis Street Racer" level of realism here, and sadly nothing like the level of handling of the cars in that remarkable game. Pretty much the best fun to be had in London Racer are the full-throttle powerslides you can pull (just a little bit like MSR, and Gran Turismo too come to that) as you sweep down off Waterloo Bridge, and then again at the next turn onto Westminster Bridge just past the garage; ideally with patrol cars spinning harmlessly all about you. Now you have a nice long stretch unhindered by the law, so you can repeat the trick at Parliament Square as you turn onto Whitehall - this time with the added bonus of wiping out another Gatso. It is also fun to bop traffic cones and bollards out of the way as you meet them. The collision detection on the run behind the National Gallery becomes truly bizarre. Maybe the pavement is made of rubber or something, because you'll ricochet off invisible obstacles like a drunk on a Saturday night. The Gatso just before Piccadilly Circus seems to be a hologram (too often you'll pass straight through it), but you can knock it down if you slew across it at an angle. It seems a bit odd that the police don't mind if you knock a camera down right in front of them, or pass by trailing a lamp-post from your bumper, but a couple of ticks over 30mph and the sirens are on. Why aren't they out catching proper criminals? It may be wise to ease off so as not to bring the pack of police cars with you around Oxford Circus, as there are roadworks down Oxford Street just before the end of the lap, and you will have buses and traffic coming at you head-on, forcing you into the path of any pursuers. POSITION : 1 TOTAL TIME : 07:25 PRICE MONEY : £ 7500 BONUS : £ 10000 FINES : £ 100 NEW BUDGET : £ 26900 _________________________________________________________________________ 3: C O U N T R Y R O U T E T O O X F O R D __________________________________________ Windsor Castle Maidenhead Bridge Marlow Bridge & Church Wallingford Castle and Church Just past the very first arch is a red road sign that seems to be made of concrete - Keep Left! The road is very narrow in parts, and you'll have your hands full fighting off the attentions of your opponents (the Beemer seems particularly aggressive), so it is best to file past the first patrol car sedately to leave you in peace on the open road. Although you can knock all the cameras down, stick to the task of leapfrogging the other cars. It seems to make no difference whether you drive fast or slow; they are always on your shoulder ready to zip past. Make a full-speed dash past the second batch of patrol cars and you should be over the finish line before they catch up with you. POSITION : 1 TOTAL TIME : 02:57 PRICE MONEY : £ 7500 BONUS : £ 10000 FINES : £ 200 NEW BUDGET : £ 44200 _________________________________________________________________________ 4: O X F O R D ___________ Exeter College All Souls College University Church (St Mary's) Merton College Examination Schools Queen's College Chapel Bridge of Sighs Radcliffe Camera (Bodleian) St Peter's Trinity College Balliol College Ashmolean Museum The narrow streets of Oxford's one-way system are a nightmare to drive, just as in real life but for a different reason. Putting the pedal to the metal is not likely to bring success here. You can easily overtake after the first bend as you weave your way through the traffic, and keep to the pavement on the right so you can demolish the Gatso. It is now wise to slam on the anchor to cruise at not much more than 40mph past the first patrol car (it seems better to be easing off than accelerating if you pass at this speed), and you can give it a burst of power to stay in touch with your opponents then ease off past the second waiting there on the grass, and repeat the trick for the third. This leaves you unhindered to blast along the narrow passage before you once again yank the handbrake (Triangle) to crawl past the fourth patrol car and then you can roar off again once around the corner. If you pick up any of these boys, then I recommend making a dash for it and collecting the whole lot of them. The street is very narrow, and as they will inevitably slide across your path somewhere, you may as well take the punishment and have the lot of them caution you at once rather than one after the other. Pull away in an orderly fashion after this so that they don't get back on your case too soon. Once they leave their waiting positions, the police cars cruise the circuit very slowly, so watch out for those white cars on the next lap. You shouldn't lose too much time as you pursue the others, who rather improbably have just barged through the Coppers without so much as an "Excuse me". There are two very sharp left-hand turns with pointy buildings which will catch you every time if you try to carry too much speed through them, and this is where the police like to take the chance to bash you. There is also a tight gateway leading into the Bodleian, and if you hit the pillar there you'll stick like Velcro. Once you negotiate this and the other gate leading back to the main road, you can open her up again and easily avoid the rest of the police cars. A sneaky trick often played by the yellow Bietl when he is right behind you here is to catapult you through this gate so that you have no choice but to flash past the waiting patrol cars there and get chased. - Hey, what about HIM? Not only Speeding, but Dangerous Driving too! I don't know... What can you do? Luckily, Broad Street is - well - 'broad', so tempting the police car to an early spin is easy. Not so if either of the next pair follow you all the way back to the Starting line... The entrance to the garage along that last straight is annoyingly protected by invisible forcefields around the trees and pavements, so a high-speed refit is not recommended. Slow but sure wins this race, so take a few moments to admire the fabulous aerial perspective of those Dreaming Spires in the morning light, and say goodbye to Oxford with yet more cash swelling your account. POSITION : 1 TOTAL TIME : 05:23 PRICE MONEY : £ 7500 BONUS : £ 20000 FINES : £ 0 NEW BUDGET : £ 61910 _________________________________________________________________________ 5: C O U N T R Y R O U T E T O L O N D O N __________________________________________ Stonehenge Avebury Stone Circle Typical English country sites (i.e. pubs and garages) Don't forget to check that damage is on zero. You have to spend that cash on something! (There is no garage on this route.) It doesn't seem that you can knock the speed cameras down on this little run in the country, and there isn't much else to do except look at the scenery. This is worth it anyway, because the pop-up becomes truly spectacular. The canopy of trees seems to be cast by Spiderman - just watch as a web of branches is spun above your head. Drop the anchor emerging from the trees, as there are a load of police cars waiting on the roundabout. Perhaps they are expecting New Age Travellers to turn up at nearby Stonehenge? Don't let some sneaky opponent cannon you at speed past these guys because there is enough to cope with because of all traffic coming your way. Stonehenge itself is a hoot. Maybe it was built by a Druid Tommy Cooper, because "Just like that!" cardboard cutout monoliths pop up from nowhere. Avebury is improbably nearby and there is a repeat performance. The map for this track clearly shows a White Horse somewhere at the start, which is also shown on the cover artwork for the PC version, but I couldn't see it here. I'm getting the feeling that this game has only half the features of the PC one... And come to think of it - where is the Lotus from the opening credits? POSITION : 4 (They took me on the final turn, honestly!) TOTAL TIME : 03:11 PRICE MONEY : £ 1500 (For coming LAST?!) BONUS : £ 20000 (No, really - you shouldn't...) FINES : £ 100 (No problem. There you go, mate) NEW BUDGET : £ 77150 (A Jag please, and something for the Missus) _________________________________________________________________________ 6: P A R K A N D P A L A C E ___________________________ Westminster Abbey Houses of Parliament Big Ben Horse Guards Parade Admiralty Arch The Mall Queen Victoria Memorial Buckingham Palace Wellington Arch (Hyde Park Corner) The challenge here is to keep your thumb on the X for the whole 2 laps. POSITION : 1 TOTAL TIME : 07:06 PRICE MONEY : £ 7500 BONUS : £ 22000 FINES : £ 800 NEW BUDGET : £ 105850 _________________________________________________________________________ 7: M 2 5 S O U T H ________________ Is it just me, or is this section not exactly the same as the first, only with a different sky? And just where is The Dome? We were promised a Dome and I want one. POSITION : 1 TOTAL TIME : 02:14 PRICE MONEY : £ 7500 BONUS : £ 22000 FINES : £ 0 NEW BUDGET : £ 135350 _________________________________________________________________________ 8: T H A M E S ___________ London Bridge station London Dungeon HMS Belfast Tower Bridge Tower of London Monument Bank of England St Paul’s Cannon Street Station London Bridge My favourite section, but only because I live nearby. The normal queue of Benetton kids outside the London Dungeon at the start seems to be missing, and then there is some ingenious mapping to include a drive-by of HMS Belfast. The Gatso there is a little tricky to line up as you are coming off the bend, unless you scrub off some speed first. Tower Bridge is very narrow, and if there is a bus coming to force you to swerve, you'll get battered for sure if there is a police car on your tail, so perhaps it is best to creep past the one waiting there unless you like to live dangerously. You can demolish those beautiful Victorian cast-iron lamp-posts as you sweep the left pavement on the other side for the speed camera. It is nice not to have a close escort, as you may need to swing left into the garage around the corner for running repairs. Judge which side of the Monument to take very carefully, as the turn after it is sharper than it first appears if you are forced to the right by traffic and the pavement is 'sticky' too. You can give it the gun all the way past the next Gatso, as the street is more than wide enough to shake off the chasing Cop cars. The only tricky part is not to get snagged by the wall alongside St Paul's. There is another ingenious mapping trick at the end of the lap, where at one moment you are coming the 'wrong' way past the entrance to London Bridge Station and the next you are blasting down a startlingly accurate Tooley Street. Wonderful. You should win this round easily with a decent car and that's it. POSITION : 2 (Got me on the last bend AGAIN...) TOTAL TIME : 07:28 PRICE MONEY : £ 5000 BONUS : £ 32000 FINES : £ 0 NEW BUDGET : £ 172350 Just look at the rubbish 'plastic' Cup you are awarded! What does it say? "THE WINNINNER OF ALL"? Maybe it got lost in translation from the Dutch. For some reason, you can't select your choice of track even after having completed the game, so if you want to relive any of those racing moments, you will be forced to battle your way through the other sections first. I managed the above scores in the bog-standard NIME with no upgrades at all (just repair bills), in under an hour without trying particularly hard. Value for money? You decide. _________________________________________________________________________ C O N C L U S I O N ___________________ So how can London Racer be improved? (Sensible suggestions only - these things are already in the game, they just need to be implemented a little better): Make the prize worth winning ---------------------------- Award only enough money for a hard-fought third place to afford just the least improvement to the car that allows you to go a little faster next time. Then you can challenge for second place, and this in turn awards just enough to buy an upgrade to your car to realistically go for the win at last... This means that the race should really BE a race, and be nearly impossible to win without earning the upgrades first. Make the prize money reflect the purchase price of a better car --------------------------------------------------------------- After only a couple of tracks, you get showered with so much cash that you buy all the cars, max. them out and you still get even more money after the next track and nothing left to spend it on. Make the speeding fines really hurt ----------------------------------- Who cares about £100 fines when you get £30000 just for finishing? Make the prize money only a Monkey or so and we have the incentive to knock those cameras down on the first lap. Perhaps add in on-the-spot fines for being cautioned; again, these should really hurt so that you need to avoid every encounter instead of breezing past the patrol cars and merely taunting them. Make the police chases more interesting --------------------------------------- As soon as you hear the sirens, you must face the inevitable. They WILL catch up and overtake you. Always. Why? If you crash, they will ram you. Always. Why? You cannot damage them. Why not? Why don't they take even a teeny tiny bit of interest in the others? Make collisions more realistic ------------------------------ The collision detection is always frustrating, sometimes infuriating and often plain surreal. Invisible walls, force fields, giant kerbs, concrete road signs, transparent trees, disappearing buildings... Make the Artificial Intelligence better --------------------------------------- All right, so this IS asking a lot, but your opponents especially seem so robotic that it is almost criminal. They just shoot off and stick in a pack, so that you can overtake on the first couple of bends and then they always sit only just behind you, ready to overtake on your first mistake, whichever car you have or whatever speed you drive at. Bearing in mind that the racing environment (even though it looks great) is so poor, I would ask Davilex: "Was that really the very best you could do? Were you yourselves truly satisfied with the game?" Perhaps it's just me - their corporate website trumpets the fact that they have sold 100,000 units (for PSX and PC) in the UK, but I would guess that is because of the knockdown price, and not because of wildfire recommendations. I wonder how many of those customers would agree that although the background artwork is generally very impressive, just about everything else lets the game down. I say this without satisfaction, as I really, really wanted this game to be good; in fact I was hoping for Great, but maybe in the end I should just settle for OK, which is really all it is. Improvements please. _________________________________________________________________________ LONDON RACER - PLAYSTATION Released: November 1999 Developers: Davilex Publisher: - _________________________________________________________________________ © J Woodrow 2002