Overall 9 Graphics 8 Sound 8 Addictive 9 Depth 9 Difficulty 6
9.5
Rush 2 Review epicamazing
All right, here's my review for what I believe to be the best racing game on the Nintendo 64, and one of the top racing games for any system.
Some racing games seek to deliver the most true to life experience of driving a car, and driving it fast, without ever setting foot inside the interior of one. Other games allow you to customize every minute detail of your car, so that the car you're driving is your dream car in real life. Now, these things are great, and make for great games. Rush 2, the second game in the San Francisco Rush series, however, doesn't need either of those. Why? Because it delivers on fun, and puts everything else backseat to that.
Gameplay: 10
For a game like this, the gameplay is the most important part. On a system like the Nintendo 64 where you can't get amazing graphics (albeit great graphics for the time it was made) nor amazing sound, the gameplay makes up for it. To start off, it is an arcade-style driving game and the driving in this game is just plain enjoyable, which is what other games should focus on. At times you'll be spinning out of control, driving on two wheels, doing flips (and landing them if you're lucky) and driving through full loops, which one track includes as a "shortcut". Included in the game is, if you get bored, a stunt track as well. This allows you to have a fun time launching your car into the air and even scores you on the tricks you do. In addition to all the fun driving there is, you can also adjust how the track you choose will run with sliders like driving through the track backwards, fog, number of rivals, or the death race option. Death race is always fun, because if a car gets blown up, it stays incinerated, instead of reviving ala Mario Kart fashion. In case the driving gets too hard, or too easy for you, there is also an adjustable difficulty slider for each race. When all else fails, there's a great list of cheats to turn on, such as turning traffic cones into landmines, flight, and super heavy gravity among others.
Depth: 9
Once you get bored of leaving your opponents in the dust because you've memorized every shortcut and turn on every map, you can go into practice mode and search for hidden unlockables. Or rather, the keys for them. On every map, including the stunt map, there are keys that you can find which unlock new cars. These keys aren't all just scattered on the race track in plain view, although there's a few like that to start you off. Many are in hard to reach places that you will be spending hours on searching for and then trying to maneuver your car to. Finding all the keys was quite the proud achievement for me, once I finally did it. There are also Mountain Dew bottles, and I'll let you imagine what those unlock. Another fun thing is also an incentive to beat the circuit (in other terms the main, career, campaign, etc. mode) which is a ROCKET CAR. Don't worry, there's many other cars to unlock, so I'm not spoiling much. This car, based off the Spirit of America, has an actual rocket on the back which shoots out flame when you rev up your engine. It has horrible controlling, obviously, but it's a lot of fun to take to a stunt track and let loose. You can also unlock 2 different, and quite fun, maps as well. One thing I forgot to mention, is the small but nice degree of customization you have over the car or truck you choose. These options range from color options, adding a paint stripe or two, changing the rims, and tuning your car so it has either more durability or better speed/handling. My score in depth was only brought down one because once you beat the game 100%, there's not much else to do, but it sure is a fun ride (or should I say, drive) getting to 100%.
Story: ?
Well, there's no story to this game, but for you imaginative people, I'm sure that makes this all the more fun. It's one of those games that you don't play to get involved with a story anyways. I mean, you wouldn't read a book for gameplay, right?
Graphics: 8
The graphics on this game are the usual high-end for the time graphics of the Nintendo 64. Everything is cleanly rendered. Trees are trees, buildings are buildings, trains are trains, etc. All of the cars are adaptions of real-life counterparts and they all look great even at high speeds. One interesting thing that was included is the damage to cars. When you hit a car from the side, you will take damage from that side, rather than all around the car. When your car takes too much damage, it will explode into a blackened wreck with flames coming out. There's not much else to say about the graphics. They're not amazing, but they don't detract from the experience in any way.
Sound: 8
This game features a sort of generic electronic music soundtrack. The song choice isn't anything that I'd put in my iPod, but it's pleasant and fits the game almost perfectly. It's almost as if they took the vibe of the game and put it into a soundtrack. All the sounds are crisp and nicely implemented as well. From the announcer's voice to the purr of engines, it takes advantage of the Nintendo 64's somewhat limited capability for sound the best it can.
Addictiveness: 10
This is one of those games that I can come back time and time again, whether it be to beat it all over again, play a few races with my friends, or shooting my car up into the air on a stunt track. If I don't have any friends over, I can race myself in a ghost race or of course just race some computer-controlled cars.
Overall: 9.5/10
It's one of those games that the classic era was known for, and those games put gameplay first. If you just want to race, blow up other cars, and jump over buildings and have a great time with your friends, here's the game for you. It's certainly not a racing simulator. It's just top-notch entertainment. Half a point is docked because once you unlock and find everything (and there is a plethora of content) there's not much else to do. I would've taken off more, but even after finding every last bit of treasure, it's still an enjoyable game.
Graphics 8 Sound 8 Addictive 9 Depth 9 Difficulty 6
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 08-07-13
Review Replies: 3
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