Podracing! (Nothing to do with MP3s)

Way before podcasting was podracing. And some little kid was like the best one there. A 6-yr old was the winner. Which is crazy, cause I've been playing this podracing game for hours and I can't win very easily. So, the next game for N64 week is Star Wars Episode 1 Racer. It's an entire game based on the cool podracing scene in Star Wars Episode 1.

As far as racing games go, it's not too bad. You hop in a pod and race around. For an N64 game, it has really good graphics. The levels flow by really smoothly with very little slowdown. And it's fast. It doesn't seem quite as fast as F-Zero, but F-Zero is the ultimate in racing. Anyways, the pods are nicely rendered with interesting and active backgrounds to entertain the eyes.

Control-wise, it's not too bad. It's easy enough to pick up and win the first few races without much of a problem. The pod floats nicely side to side and around corners. There are a couple of problems, though. Really tight corners are difficult to get around without slowing down a whole lot. And of course, the computer players go around it just fine. Also, some levels require you to jump across large gaps, which tends to be problematic at times.

Anyways, let's talk about the difficulty. The initial races are easy enough to beat with no problem. But then the fun begins. To unlock a track, you only have get 4th or better in the race before it. That sounds easy enough, but some of the later tracks are difficult not to get last place in, so it can take a while to unlock everything.

As far as the music goes, the game actually features orchestrated music from the movie, which is nice. The weird thing is it only plays on the third lap. Which brings me to another point. Each track takes 3 laps to complete, which is normal. But each lap can take upwards of 2 or 3 minutes, so you could spend 7 or 8 minutes on some of the longer tracks. That's crazy. Maybe it's just because I've been playing Kirby Air Ride, whose laps can take like 30 seconds if you're quick enough. In any case, it seems a little long, but at least it's not like NASCAR (300 laps. In a circle. No kidding).

All in all, it's a pretty good game. Party-game-wise it seems a little hard to see everything that's on the screen, so it may not be the best multiplayer game, but it's not bad. I think that the later tracks are too hard, but that's just me. And I'm right.

Pros:

• Great sense of speed!
• Good graphics and music
• Lots of tracks and characters

Cons:

• A little too hard at times
• No music on the first two laps
• Opponent voice clips are repetitive

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased: