Whiplash

The Good
This game has it all for a racing game and slaps in a little more when you least it expect it. When you load this addictive game in you have wide selection of cars which are all special in their own way, a wonderful graphical menu which is easy to use, nifty graphics and wonderful sound. This is the ultimate game for playing with two or more players and will bring hours of discussion after the game is played especially with the game's inclusion of fast pace stunt tracks which will get you cheering in amazement or complaining in upset.

The Bad
The game, in extreme rare cases, crashes your system during a cruical point of the game which would get you upset. But as I said it would RARELY happen.

The Bottom Line
If you play only one racing game in your lifetime make sure it has Fatal (or Whiplash) in the title and it was developed by Interplay.

The Good
The tracks all have interesting designs, some with moving ramps, some with twists, 360 loops, split loops, etc. etc. etc. The different companies have cars that perform somewhat differently (different in top speed, acceleration, handling, braking, toughness, etc.) so choosing the car will lead to somewhat different strategies. There's a pit area for repairs so pitting strategy is important too.

The Bad
Some of the stunts are just too hard (esp. the corkscrew jump), the AI that doesn't care if you're in the way (imagine being pushed off the corkscrew jump ramp!), typical euro design of locking out advanced levels until you complete the initial level of difficulty, the cars aren't THAT different. The damage model is just a bit TOO relaxed.

The Bottom Line
Whiplash is like being inside your own "Hot Wheels" toy set... All those crazy stunts in those tracks? You can now DO them yourself. Add the racing motif, the ability to coordinate two players on the track with pitting strategies, and it's a great racing game.

The Good
I really just liked everything about this game. Although my computer was able to run the game in SVGA mode I prefered to use VGA because the game just ran so much faster and was even more enjoyable to play. The tracks are also well designed. They include everything from corkscrews to loop-the-loops and I found that occasionally if you hit a wall just right you may find yourself launched high into the air. I found this just plain bizzare when it first happened. The two-player mode is also fun which means that you can race against another human opponent on the same computer.

The Bad
Quite often during a race you will find that one of the computer controlled cars would drive the wrong way round a track. If you are winning a race and you hit a car coming in the opposite direction then you can risk losing your position in the race.

The Bottom Line
Overall Fatal Racing is an excellent racing game. The game runs well in SVGA but even better in VGA mode. Even though sometimes slightly odd things can happen like being able to drive through walls and end up landing UNDER the race track can happen I have had years of enjoyment out of this game.