By: Rebellion
Racing games... somewhere, someone is always making
another one. In the last month we've seen ten or more racing
games and they've ranged from realistic to arcade, bad to
good, fun to boring. After playing some of the finer examples,
it somewhat influences your judgement of other games.
S.C.A.R.S. from UbiSoft kind of falls into this category.
It's yet another arcade style game similar to Buggy, which I
reviewed about a month ago. It's more along the lines of a
futuristic racer, but it's softened down into a revamped clone of
the classic Wacky Wheels. You have the choice of a few cars
which are modeled after animals and insects. Each have their
own handling characteristics and there are, of course,
advanced cars that you'll be able to use once you get far
enough to unlock them.
The game background itself is very similar to DethKarz. Drive
fast, pick up powerups, and shoot at your opponents. It's not
geared to be the extremely fast paced, more serious like
DethKarz. This scales it down to the more sedated arcadish
style that's suited for younger gamers. Granted, Wacky Wheels
was fun for all ages, but it was definitely geared more toward
ages 10-15 or so.
The environment for SCARS is bright and lively. It's very
smooth and polished looking. The explosions and special
effects are nicely done, but still pale when compared with
arcade games like Plane Crazy or DethKarz. There's no
damage modeling or any other more advanced effects I've
enjoyed in other games. It's definitely got Buggy beat hands
down although the games are very similar graphically. The
menus in Buggy are terrible though. They're not pleasant to
look at and under D3D they were sort of fuzzy. It is 3D only and
uses D3D and 3Dfx (which wouldn't run for me). It does give
quite a few graphics options from 320x200 to 1024x768 at 16
bpp or 32 bpp. Not many games do the 32 bpp yet so it's a nice
option. (The Voodoo chipsets won't do 32 bpp either)
The sound is adequate. Nothing spectacular here. The engine
noise is well done so that it's not annoying. You can hear
multiple engines when other cars are near but no great 3D
sound. The sound effects are nice enough to add a little bit to
the environment.
It's a simple racer. You race circuits and get scored for how
well you do. It will also give you bonus points for "damaging"
other cars if you're the high scorer during a race. You will get a
certain amount of points each time you use your weapons on
your opponents so if you can rack up enough points you'll get
an extra point to add on to your scoring. It has 4 circuit levels,
which you'll have to beat the lower ones in order to unlock the
higher ones. This will also unlock some better cars. You'll get
some nifty weapons to use around the track by picking up
powerups. Some of these are ranged weapons and some are
traps for stopping the opponents. The races aren't extremely
difficult, but then it's intended to be a fun racer. It reuses the
tracks during each circuit, but it will change them to race at
night. The night racing is probably the most fun since you can't
see well outside of your headlights and that makes it a little
more interesting. I'm a little miffed about one thing though. I
found no way to change the buttons for a gamepad. It uses a
four button scheme which puts the weapon button in a hard
place to press on my 10 button gamepad. It would let you
configure the keyboard, but I couldn't find anyway to change
the gamepad.
Entertaining... maybe, but not for a real long time. I thought it
was a little fun at first, but after playing Buggy and DethKarz, I
just wasn't really in the mood for "another" racer. It may be
okay if you have a friend over for it's split screen racing, but
otherwise it's not the best way to waste time.
It's pretty much "just another racer." There's better out there. It
doesn't have the graphics to withstand games like PowerSlide
and DethKarz and it just doesn't have the entertainment level I
got from the preminent arcade racer Wacky Wheels. I'd
suggest getting something else to waste time with. This one
might be better off in the bargain bin, because it's just not a
standout.
Highs: Reasonably smooth graphics
Lows: Split screen is the only multi option, it's nothing special
Graphics: 16/20
Sound: 10/15
Gameplay: 17/30
Entertainment Value: 12/20
Multiplayer: 2/5
Overall: 6/10
Tested on:
PII 300 w/ 64 megs RAM, Diamond M80, 16 mb Quantum Raven
(Voodoo Banshee), Thrustmaster Rage3D Gamepad
|