Dreamcast-Talk.com

Gary_b:

A lot of pointers for my review can be found in the original Planet DC write-up from 2001...same score as well!

http://planetdc.segaretro.org/games/rev ... index.html

Neohound:

There are only a couple of tunes I find truly awful, namely "I Can Still Believe" and "Don't Wait". The majority of the others just don't compliment MSR, especially if you're speeding along in Time Attack. Even my chosen 3 tracks sound dated to what was being played in dance clubs circa '99/00'. As I stated in my review, MSR's soundtrack has always divided opinion and continues to do so. Mind you, I'm not as scathing as this paragraph from Electric Circus's review:

"....And although it really has nothing to do with MSR’s gameplay, we do have to make special mention of the soundtrack because it is so immeasurably, shockingly, paint-peelingly bad, it almost defies description. Cheesy guitar rock, cheesy R&B and cheesy country so bad it would make roast chicken magnate Kenny Rogers turn in his grave, if it weren’t for the fact he’s still alive. It’s as though one week on Star Search they gave all the runners-up a consolation prize of being able to record a song for the MSR soundtrack. Even generic, mindless Racing Game Techno (TM) would have been better than this. The worst of the worst are a country song that includes the line - no lie here - "She had to buy some underwear....And asked if I would take her there", and a desperately pathetic Will Smith wannabe whose name, and I hope I misheard this, sounded like MC H*m*.
http://web.archive.org/web/200311202054 ... ticle=5182

The most ferocious comment about this game came from a post on Bizarre Creations old EZboard forum circa 2000. It was written by a hardcore Sega Rally 2/F355 fan:

.......Bugs or not, I think MSR has been hysterically overrated by all and sundry. For me, it doesn't have 128bit quality. The graphics appear nice at first, but after you play it for a short while you notice some alarming discrepencies (apart from the dull car models) - the way the cars look when it's foggy or misty is almost embarrasing, and there is severe slowdown (particularly on night-time races) when there's a lot of cars onscreen at once. Rainy weather & tyre smoke slow it even further. Another thing, the night races are far too dark - you can hardly see where the hell you're going! This might be realistic..I dont know, because I don't live in London, San Fransico or Tokyo..but the gameplay shouldn't suffer at the cost of being realistic. Even when playing MSR in daylight races, it appears very DULL - is there no sunshine in these cities for god's sake?!

Although MSR as a game, is quite playable, there is very little depth to it - because of the simplified physics employed in the handling routines, there are only a few ways to take a corner in the game. That, coupled with the fact that all of MSR's roads are perfectly flat - there's no height variations, small bumps, or undulations - these are the sort of things (and realistic handling physics) that were introduced three years ago (on a 32bit console, not a 128bit one) in Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo. After playing GT/GT2, MSR comes across as being a rather shallow game by comparison, and seems as if it was developed with "casuals" in mind. Only the fact that there are hundreds of "tracks" and lots of races to take part in, saves MSR from total disaster in my opinion.

To play the real "Best Racer Ever", you still need a Dreamcast, but you need to buy a game that was made in Japan. Namely, AM2's Ferrari F355 Challenge. This is everything that MSR is not. Gorgeous to look at - rock-solid 60fps with no slowdown WHATSOEVER, beautiful weather effects, stunning car models... And a dream to play - accurate models of some of the world's finest tracks, realistic physics and handling characteristics which allow almost limitless depth to the gameplay, network race mode...F355 is a true 128bit game, and one which MSR will never live up to.

I agree that F355 is a superb game. I think it's probably the greatest, certainly the purest, driving experience to be had on any console. But to compare it to MSR is disingenuous at best, and just plain ignorant at worst. They are two totally different animals, both in the way they play and also the people they attract.

F355 is essentially a driving simulator with a steep learning curve, not best suited to the casual or unskilled gamer. It had only one car(how hardcore is that !?) and the tracks were ones that had been previously used a thousand times before plus it was the end result of years of Sega honing it's arcade skills to perfection. Of course it may have been brilliant but it was in some ways a very simple formula rather than revolutionary, that's to say it wasn't a difficult concept to turn into a workable game. MSR was never intended to occupy the same ground. It was trying to open up driving games to a new audience and introduced several innovative ideas which have since been copied throughout the industry but at the time were out there and untried.

MSR isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it is a flawed title that could have done with more development time (see the sequel on Xbox to see how it could have been|). However, on release it still managed to wow gamers, giving them whole cities to play in with a easy to learn handling concept that was both fun and deep. This fun factor runs throughout the game with everything putting a smile on my face from the drifting to the graphics to the radio. It was also edgy and exciting - you knew you were playing something new and different.

Oh, that reviewer said there were no height variations in MSR's tracks ? Well it may be over ten years since I played it but I distinctly remember going over bumps in the London sections and as for the US sections...........er did he forget the hills ? lol

I must admit that no song from MSR has ever found its way into my ipod/cd player ! But I still say it's variety and the way the radio was part of the game lifted it up beyond the average
(for those days) fare. I guess we'll always arguing over that ! haha

One last thing. Which driving game had the WORST soundtrack of any game in history ?

That right, F355 !!!!!

Nice one. Thanks... ^^

Thanks for the info rjay, very interesting stuff.

That mystery tune, I've never heard that ! Does it always play over that vid ? I've never seen that either. Pretty cool seeing those London buses and taxis tearing round the streets and the lawnmowers.......well that's was just nuts lol

Hey rjay, I just noticed your video is being featured on the Dreamcast Junkyard blog.

http://the-dreamcast-junkyard.blogspot. ... racer.html

Cool stuff!