Overall 5.4 Graphics 6 Sound 4 Difficulty 9
3
Heavy Metal Gamer: Hooter's Road Trip (PSX) HeavyMetalGamer
I wonder who thought it was a bright idea to take a restaurant like Hooter's and make a racing game out of it? I mean don't get me wrong, I think Hooter's is a great place, I am not gonna make this sound like "ugh that place is sexist and rude towards women" I mean if women didn't like working there, they simply wouldn't work there, but this is more about, why make a game out of the Hooter's name? Well it happened, and it's not very good. It's quite awful. Hooter's Road Trip was developed by Hoplite Research and published by Ubisoft. It was released in 2002 on the PlayStation and PC. Hooter's Road Trip is a arcade driving/racing game where must travel from city to city trying to avoid traffic, and racing against opponents. You must win every race to move on to the next level or the next city. There are skill tests in this game sponsored by Hooter's, oh sponsored? Do they give free chicken wings? Fried pickles? A free burger and fries? A hug from one of the Hooter's girls? Nope, you just learn how to drive better, which is laughable at best.
If you win the races, you will get to meet a Hooter's girl from the state you win it. You will get a cut scene of them saying "Hey there, welcome to Jacksonville" or "HEY YALL WELCOME TO TEXAS!" The acting is awful, just awful, but then again, these girls are not actresses, they are Hooter's waitresses, so I can't really bash on them too hard. There are 12 different vehicles you can choose from ranging from a variety of fast cars, for instance I like choosing the muscle cars, because they kick a lot of ass. Now you can test drive, practice and of course Road Trip. Test drive you just drive around, practice, you pretty much just learn how to drive, and Road Trip is where you go city to city, unlocking vehicles by winning and meeting all the Hooter's girls.
The graphics for Hooter's Road Trip are bland, some say this game looks like the Destruction Derby games, and yes I can kind of see that, but at the same time Destruction Derby looks a lot better then this. The game is really bland looking. They aren't complete garbage though, the game is colorful and the settings are alright, but really the only redeeming factor for this game in general is the cut scenes with the women saying hi, or on a beach jumping up and down and all of that fun stuff. The music and sound effects are alright, the music is just the same 3 or 4 songs, but it's tolerable. For instance you get mostly a guitar rock soundtrack, with a lot of simple guitar solo and then some rap rock stuff. There isn't much for sound effects which is odd, because you would think they would have it in there when you crash into something, or screeching of the tires. Maybe they forgot to do it that day, because they were too busy hitting on the Hooter's girls and eating Hooter's wings.
The controls are god awful. It's almost like they wanted to make this a drunk driving simulator, because you are going to be going back and forth on the road and crashing into a ton traffic, and that makes it difficult to win some of these races. The acceleration and brake is simple to do, but the steering is complete garbage, sometimes it's slow at responding, then there are times it can be very slippery. It's really frustrating and I can almost say this is some of the worst controls in a racing game.
Hooter's Road Trip is awful, boring, and really the only redeeming factor in this game is the cut scenes with the Hooter's girls. Really though I don't think I can't think of a reason for them to put a lot of time and effort into a video game based on a restaurant chain. The game play is bland, the graphics are bland, the music and sound effects are ok, the controls are a total abomination, this game just completely sucks and is not worth picking up. If you are a collector and want to check it out, I am sure you can find it cheap. Hell some of the prices on EBay are around $3 to $5, to as high as $17, $20. Get the cheapest copy if you want it that bad, or you can download the ISO for the PlayStation version, which I highly recommend.
Graphics 6 Sound 4 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 09-15-16
Review Replies: 4
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