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World Tour Racing - The Atari Times

World Tour Racing


Getting The Green!
by Taz

September 7, 1997
World Tour Racing is the second new Jag CD game released by Telegames since Atari's disappearance into JTS. This is the second F1 type racer for the Jag and comes with 16 different tracks, one player mode and a split screen two player mode, ability to configure your car, and nice FMV sequences. There are three modes of gameplay: Single Race - where you can practice on each track, Championship mode - where you can configure your car to better handle each track, and Arcade mode - where you must place to qualify for the next race. The Memory Track is not supported by WTR.

WTR utilizes both polygons and sprites. The cars and certain parts of the background are made up of polygons while other parts of the background are made up of sprites. The polygonal cars aren't as sharp in appearance as the polygons in Iron Soldier 2, but the resolution is still ok. Although all the tracks are different, the background (sky, trees) does not change much which makes the tracks a bit uninteresting after a while. There are nice tricks utilized in WTR, like the blurring of the spectators in the stands as you zip past them at high speed, but the one thing about this game that really bothers me is its framerate. These types of high speed racing games should have a  high framerate to maintain smooth action. However, the framerate in WTR is choppy, which to me makes this game almost a re-visit of Blue Lightning (nice FMVs but choppy game). The framerate does get pretty fast when you're racing at high speed along a straight part of a track with no other cars near you, but the game does not keep that fast framerate consistently throughout the entire game. The framerate drops even more in the split screen two player mode.

Despite the lack of silky smooth gameplay in this game, WTR does manage to keep the fun factor. The computer AI was done very well making racing against the computer cars almost like racing against human players.

The sounds and music are pretty good, however, there are only two or three tunes in the game.:(

Control is good once you get the hang of when to break, accelerate, and when to turn. There are no crash and burns in this game. Instead your car does a 360 whenever it crashes into something.

Overall World Tour Racing could have been a nice contender against other racers on the other systems with its ok graphics, good music, and its sweet AI, but the choppy framerate affects the smoothness of the gameplay. So I'd have to give Super Burnout the cup for best racer on the Jag, but I'll still be playing a lot of WTR since it is the best F1 racer on the Jag.

Nice shot, huh? Too bad this view isn't in the game anymore.
Pit Stops? We don't need no stinkin' pit stops!
Turn off the road detail to increase the frame-rate.
Split-screen racing action on the Jaguar CD!
World Tour Racing
System: Jaguar
Publisher: Telegames
Genre: Driving
Graphics Score: 70%
Sound & Music Score: 90%
Gameplay Score: 70%
Control Score: %

Final Score: 69%



Reader Comments for World Tour Racing

My Take by Gregory D. George on 1997-09-07 12:00:00
My opinion of World Tour Racing is somewhat different from Taz's. Maybe it's because I'm a big racing game fan, or that I'm glad WTR is not Checkered Flag II. Whatever the case, WTR is a worthy addition to the Jaguar CD library.

The graphics of the game are good, but not great. They some- times look blocky, but it's not as noticeable as you would think. Especially since you'll be flying past them at a very convincing high speed. The frame-rate is not 30fps, but hovers around 20. The FMV is some of the absolute best I've seen for the Jaguar CD, surpassing even Iron Soldier II's.

I was a little disappointed that there are only two different pieces of music during gameplay. They get repetitious, and I often find myself turning them off completely. I feel it helps me concentrate with the music silent. As for the game sounds, they're typical racing sounds. Good, but nothing spectacular.

So, the graphics aren't the best, the frame rate isn't the highest, and there isn't much musicical variety. So, why do I like this game? GAMEPLAY my friends. There's just something about sliding around the racetrack knocking other cars off the road. There's something about flying down the road at 150 MPH that makes me like this game, even more than IS2. So, if you have a Jag CD, don't pass up the best (and only ) F1 Racer on the Jag. I give it an 80%, Taz gives it a 69%.

Incidentally, I became aware of a PC game called Power F1 by Eidos soon after writing this review. It has the EXACT same interface and FMV sequences as WTR! Didn't WTR's programmer go to Eidios?? Well anyway, I thought it was interesting...
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