Advertising Blurbs

YOUR PASSPORT TO RACING!

• Develop a racing career as you compete for job offers with each of the 15 World Driver Teams.
• 10 tracks located throughout the world: Hawaii, Black Forest, Las Vegas, Kyoto, New Zealand, Les Gets, Sydney, Zurich, Lisbon and Rome.
• 20 challenging events spread across two different levels of competition.
• Over 30 highly detailed, exotic cars with realistic physics and handling!
• Race head-to-head in two player split screen mode!
• Save replay on the Controller Pak® to analyze your driving skills from multiple camera angles.
"Midway and Boss Studios have created not only a beautiful racing game, but one with more depth and replay value than anything in its class." -Nintendo Power


Contributed by Joshua J. Slone (4625) on Jun 13, 2007.

Comfortably viewing the competition in its rear-view mirror, Midway's realistic racing simulation delivers delicious visuals and an ambitious challenge mode that thrusts you into the mind of a young driver hungry for success. With 33 blistering cars and 10 dynamic tracks, World Driver: Championship is guaranteed to get your gears turning.

Easily the most impressive aspect of this title is its eye-popping graphics and visual effects. These screen shots demonstrate the crisp look of each car, but they do little to highlight the excellent reflection mapping on the vehicles. The colors of the cars changes as they pass in and out of shadows, and Boss has knowingly built many areas into the tracks to highlight this awesome effect.

The 10 tracks are designed to maximize artistic impact, rather than to represent actual stretches of road or existing race tracks. The courses have been designed to minimize pop-up, allowing Boss to sparingly use fog as a realistic weather effect rather than as way to hide polygon generation.

Boss Games' 1997 release Top Gear Rally allowed for three cars to appear on the screen at the same time, but World Driver: Championship displays eight vehicles racing simultaneously without harming the frame rate.

Unlike the bulk of Midway's racing releases, World Driver: Championship is not an arcade racer. Although the tracks are exciting and not what you'd typically see on ESPN, there are no shortcuts, power-ups, or mile-long jumps over city blocks.

The physics system has been designed to be ultra-realistic, without making play control impossible. Each car handles differently according to its design, and you'll have to adopt a new driving style each time you acquire a fresh ride.

Unless you want to get up close and personal with the guardrails, you'll have to frequently tap the brakes to maintain control of the vehicle. The car doesn't show any visual signs of damage, but contacting the walls will add a few seconds to your finishing time. Play control may initially frustrate gamers more accustomed to arcade racers, but once they earn a few car upgrades and master subtle movements of the Control Stick, they'll likely become converted simulation fans.

World Driver: Championship offers novice drivers 4 tracks to tackle, but eventually it takes you to 10 racing areas around the world, including:

Hawaii
Les Gets
Sydney
New Zealand
Las Vegas
Rome
Zurich
Lisbon
Kyoto

As with Boss Games' Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding, each track will have three variations with new track segments. The variations will be progressively more challenging. You'll also be able to race each track in reverse (something you obviously can't do in a snowboarding game) and tackle mirrored modes. In case you're not keeping count, that's well over 100 track experiences.

An innovative feature of World Driver: Championship is its Challenge Mode, which is the heart and soul of the game. In this welcome departure from typical racing circuits, you start off as an inexperienced driver with two job offers from competing racing teams.

You get to choose which team to race for, and you earn points for your team by turning in good finishes. Your team will offer you better cars as you prove yourself, and other organizations will begin to offer you positions on more prestigious teams.

Your ultimate goal is to become the #1 ranked driver, but be careful how you get there. You can switch teams at any point, but it will take longer to get your new team's upgraded car. With one team, you won't be able to return if you ever leave. In all, there are seven different teams, hailing from all over the globe.

Although this title does not support three or four-player action, two drivers can compete head to head or work together as members of the same team.

Even among the stiff competition found in the large library of racing games for Nintendo 64, World Driver: Championship stands out as one of the best. Unless you're satisfied with dreams of taking the family minivan for a spin around the block, this is one race you don't want to miss.


Contributed by Evil Ryu (32172) on May 19, 2005.