Atari Karts
Kan this Kart game Kompete with Mario?
By Gregory D. GeorgeOctober 22, 2001
Nintendo
really hit it big with their Mario Kart game for the
Super NES. Since the original came out there have been scores of
sequels on subsequent Nintendo consoles as well as several clone
games on the Sony and Sega platforms. Oh, and the Atari Jaguar
platform as well.
Atari Karts was the first game of
this type that I had ever played. I knew that Mario Kart
was a huge success and wondered if this version would be any
fun. At the time, I wasn't disappointed. Atari Karts has
beautiful (although 16-bit looking) graphics, some nice music
and sound effects, and good control. Oh, and one more thing I
like about it is that I got this "Extremely Rare" game
for a measly $15 during EB's Jaguar closeouts. Woohoo!
The graphics are nice, however, they're
barely above what a 16-bit system could do. The characters are
sprite based instead of polygons, which really isn't that big of a
deal. But it does remind the player that the Jaguar is not a polygon
pushing monster. The backgrounds are nicely detailed and even
include some very slick parallax scrolling. The Jaguar's high color
palette is put to good use as you can tell from the screenshots.
Atari Karts' power-ups didn't
begin to bother me until I saw how Mario Kart's power-up
were handled. I then became quite disappointed that the power-up
icons in Atari Karts were flat on the road as one would find a roadkill.
These flat
icons make it significantly more difficult to see
exactly what icon you are about to pick up. If you can pick them
up at all.
In
addition, the power-ups
included in Atari Karts are quite lame in comparison to
the competition. Mario Kart includes power-ups where you
can "attack" your opponents with missiles (shells),
defend yourself with a shield, and use other anti-social weapons
against your enemies. Atari Karts' only offensive weapon
is the green "Reverse Opponents Controls" power-up.
Which will hardly even affect a computer controlled opponent.
Other power-ups include the required speed bursts, improved
handling, and extra lives. The most frustrating "power-up" is the
reverse controls. Trying to train your brain to hit the opposite
direction will almost always cause you to turn the wrong
direction thus permitting the other racers to beat you to the
finish line.
The few sound effects during the game are
quite appropriate in a cartoony way. There is the
"bumping" of the Karts, the spin-out sound, the
"use power-up" effect, but not much else to speak of.
However, this is one Jaguar game where you'll actually find
music playing during the game. Again, they are of a cartoony
nature, but they are well done and there is a nice variety of
them.
Gameplay is almost good enough to make
you forget about the power-ups. There are two types of turns you can
perform: The standard turn which is done by moving the joypad,
or the hard turn done by pressing the shoulder keys (or the 4
and 6 keys). But be very careful. Turning too hard will stop you
dead and cause you to spin out! Another chance for your
opponents to pass you.
Most of the tracks are a joy to play
and there are several shortcuts you can use to get ahead of the
racers. However, the Castle tracks will cause you a great deal of
dread every time you play them. You see, the other tracks are
quite forgiving when it comes to driving off the road. Your only
penalty on those tracks is that you may slow down a little.
However, if you are not a perfect driver in a Castle race,
you will crash into a wall stopping you dead in your tracks. In
the meantime, while you are trying to back up and get back into
the race, the other racers will zip past you making it virtually
impossible to catch up to win. Arrrggghhh!!!
Computer AI is minimal at best. They never
make a mistake when it comes to driving. They never spin out.
They never crash. They never pick up power-ups. It really
doesn't feel like you are competing with anything besides a
computer. Which leads me to believe that they are simply on a
pre-programmed path for each of the tracks. All the fancy
character graphics can't reverse the fact that we are playing
against "perfect" opponents.
The inclusion of Bentley Bear (from Crystal
Castles) is a real
treat, however the other characters leave a lot to be desired.
Doesn't Atari have any classic characters they could have
included besides Bentley? What about Kangaroo? Arabian? The
Centipede? The Cyberball robots? Charley Chuck (from Food
Fight)? The Paperboy? The Red Baron? Anything would have
been better than the freak-show characters that were included.
Overall, Atari Karts is not a bad
game, but it's not the best either. It's fun to play for a while
until you begin to notice the flaws and
showstoppers (ie Castle wall, reverse, spinning out, etc.) Like so many other Jaguar games,
Atari Karts could have used a bit
more development time. A few more weeks could have made this
average game outstanding.
Game Data |
Scores
|
| Title |
Atari Karts |
Graphics |
85% |
| Publisher |
Atari |
Sound/Music |
100% |
| Genre |
Driving |
Gameplay |
70% |
| System |
Jaguar |
Control |
85% |
|
|
Overall |
75% |
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