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EA Sports dumped some really
quite poor conversions onto the Saturn, ported from the
PlayStation code, time and again we knew that the Saturn
was capable of so much more, if only EA could untap the
machines potential. Andretti racing is one of those
titles. The Saturn version suffers with a shorter draw
distance, more pop up and clipping than the PlayStation
game. In all honesty the game looks rough, yet I’m about
to recommend it.
The Saturn has a number of racing games, mostly arcade
ports, such as the incredible SEGA Rally. They all
feature games with better handling than this, but no
Saturn racing game offers the depth of Andretti Racing.
In the game you play through a career mode in either
Open Wheeled Indy Cars, or NASCAR Stock cars. To
complete the game you need to master both series on a
range of ovals and street circuits. The variety of the
tracks is staggering, and best of all the Stock Cars and
Open Wheel cars handle very differently. This is in
effect two games in one.
There are so many options in this game. You can change
the length of the races, you can play quick races, you
can adjust the damage settings, change the handling on
the cars, include or exclude pit stops. It is a motor
sport fans heaven.
As you’d expect from EA menus and cut scenes are slick,
the game is presented as a television production which
adds to the atmosphere. If you’re a fan of American
motor sport you’ll recognise many of the faces and
voices.
The game is tricky to play as the controls are not
always as responsive as you’d like, and the wheel does
little to help, but with practice this game can become
an immersive experience.
Problems, yep there are many. If too many cars crash on
a section of track then the Saturn is unable to display
them all on screen so EA put in a strange giant car to
block the track which looks daft and ugly. Opponent’s AI
is very iffy too, particularly on ovals, but the sheer
number of people your racing adds to the challenge, at
least it does for a single player, nothing here for
those who want to play multiplayer.
One final problem, the game takes an absurd amount of
space to save. You need to buy a memory cartridge to
save this game, and there is little enjoyment to be had
here if you don’t have room to save the career mode.
No this game is not perfect, and the PSX version sadly
was better, but for a petrol head it’s worth a spin, and
it’s significantly better than its sequel NASCAR ’98.
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