Star Wars Episode 1: Racer

If you didnt see Star Wars Episode 1 when it came out, you were probably in a cave. Even in Germany where there were fewer English theaters than there were good looking french women, I went to go see it. And you probably did too.

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer is basically using the "Pod Racing" mechanic from the movies and sticking you in it. Natrually, because the original movie itself was not deep enough in this respect, the game takes a lot of jumps around to come up with characters, pods, locations, and your general stuff that's easier for people who just make EVERYTHING up.

For those of you who didnt see Episode 1 (Lucky bastards), Pod Racing is basically racing a little cockpit pulled by two engines around a track. Of course, things go boom, and the question of how any of this is pulled off is basically thrown to the dogs, but we can ignore this because Star Wars is magical or something.

This game is not necessarilly that bad if you like vomit-inducing framerates. For some reason, the people who made this game sat down and decided that the most effective way to fake speed is to have extreme speed, sacrificing framerate and graphical prowess. In fact, when I play this game now (In the era of the NFSU and the like), this game makes me want to hurl. The textures are horrible and repeating, meaning that while the framerate skips around and occasionally gets fast enough to give you more vertigo, you generally just feel this intense factor of needless jumpiness. This is part of the reason I've included the huge-ass picture: You need to see clearly how it looks, and it looks bland.



Another issue about this game is that it just feels repetitive. There is genuinely nothing new to this game beyond the fact that you get around the track and beat everyone. Now, its genuine that I generically think Racing games to be, as a group, repetitve- but this sets a new standard for it all. Literally, you just race through slow, simplistic tracks trying to go up the ranks and stay there.

There are some interesting parts to this game. You are able to upgrade your pods with equipment you buy, thus makng it feel a little customizeable. And, just like every other racer on the planet, the better you do in the races, the more cash you get, thus it is impossible to beat any higher levels no matter your skill unless you play around with the weaklings in the start.

Overall, this game is nothing new to the tired racing genre. It feels like every time Lucasfilm wants to get some kudos, they like to send out a bazillion more Star Wars games to try to revive this dead genre. Futuristic racing people might want to look toward a more recent game, like Wipeout Pure or Kinetica, rather than this tired trash.

2 star(s) out of 5

Discuss More N64 Games More Racing Games