MegaRace 2

The Good
Just like the first MegaRace, the second installment is a champion in creativity, and in being so it still managed to surpass its predecessor. Nearly every single aspect has been beefed up and adapted to the combat racing canon.

In its heart it is still a racing/rail-shooting hybrid with a pre-rendered movie clip serving as the track itself, but with their full-screen high resolution rendering in lieu of the reduced viewport of the first MegaRace, the tracks got even more spectacular. So did the cars, which were perhaps the Achilles' heel of MegaRace's eye-candy: they are now full 3D models that scale fine depending on their distance and, what's more important, you are no longer limited to facing them one at a time, though this came at a terrible price that will be discussed later.

Back in the day, MegaRace got a lot of attention due to the charisma of the dystopian futuristic TV show setting à la The Running Man, and the antics of the annoyingly funny host Lance Boyle. Luckily, not a drop of this appeal was lost in this sequel, with Christian Erickson returning as an even more cynical Mr. Boyle, this time around sidekicked by a braindead bimbo assistant whose name he mixes up all the time. You'll just love/hate these cutscenes no less that you did MegaRace's, although useless prizes like the "genuine Scottish accent" are now gone.

With all this technological overhaul, the limitation to only six tracks in this second incarnation, as opposed to the fourteen - if memory serves me right - of its predecessor, doesn't even make itself felt so much. Many limitations in gameplay have been relaxed: besides the aforementioned need to cope with all opponents at the same time, it is now possible to drive the track backwards, in which case the movie is replaced by still camera angles. You are no longer obliged to shoot down all opponents in a row, since cars are now racing for positions. You race through every track in two five-lap sessions, where you will have to cross the finish line at least on a seventh and fourth place respectively. A third session lasts 3 laps only and has the four survivors racing without weapons, yet with the strict requirement of a first place this time around.

Finally, enter the monetary component in MegaRace 2. The power-ups scattered on the track that gave your car, or stripped it of, speed and ammunition are now gone. Missiles, mines, oil, repairs and shields can now be purchased before each race with the cash earned according to your earlier placement. So can other cars be purchased, although the difference appears to be merely aesthetic.

The Bad
Simply put, MegaRace 2 has some of the most blatantly obscene rubberbanding ever seen in a game. While catching up with an opponent or even overtaking it is always somewhat feasible, once you do you'll keep having it stuck on your tail. No matter how long you drive at top speed, you'll keep having everyone breathing on your neck until something happens and they overtake you. That "something" happening doesn't even have to be a mistake on your part. Sometimes it just happens out of the blue; sometimes it's enough for one car on your tail to slightly bump into yours and cause it to turn 180 degrees. Also you'll have a real hard time trying to figure how you can be overtaken by cars that keep swerving all the time from one side to another, and how they could possibly match your straight flat-out speed that way.

Yes, the car physics are totally unrealistic too. Touching a vehicle with just a corner of yours, or a slight collision with the roadside at half a degree too many can be enough to find yourself facing the wrong way. Given the generally low speed and the fact that all cars tend to stay close to one another due to rubberbanding, the overall feeling is comparable to a bumper car simulator. Laying mines to keep opponents off your tail and throwing a few missiles when they overtake you can help for a while, but is not enough for getting the job done until the last lap, and the fact that there are NO upgrades that affect speed, not even the stupidest nitro booster that even its predecessor had, certainly doesn't help. Add a shorter racing phase with guns switched off on top of that, and there you have it: the only remaining skill-dependent factor in the game is gone and the only expendable resource you're left with is hope.

Whether MegaRace 2 actually managed to surpass its predecessor in the sound department, is actually open to subjective judgement. The Jungle-ish soundtrack that accompanies each race is remarkable, but I've always been a fan of Stéphane Picq's style, even in the more chiptune-like form of the first MegaRace. Ingame sound effects, on the other hand, are nothing to write home about. A live commentary by Boyle is sorely missed, although it didn't turn up to be incredibly exciting when we finally got it in MegaRace MR3.

The Bottom Line
You can tell how hard MegaRace 2 tries to shake off the stigma of full-motion video shooters, all the while maintaining and even improving upon the spectacularity of pre-rendered tracks. Everything moves towards making MegaRace into a full-fledged combat racer, a trend confirmed by the third and final game. However, it does so from a questionable perspective: rather than adding FMV eye-candy on top of a solid racing game engine, it feels more like it's struggling to add racing game components to a rail shooter. While the effort is appreciated, Cryo got the very fundamentals of the genre wrong, starting with speed management. The generally low pace, combined with unrealistic physics and a tendency to squeeze most cars in a restricted segment of the track, disempowers the player and makes the application of their skills marginal compared to mere chance.

Suitable for cheesy FMV freaks, trigger-happy drivers and fans of The Running Man and Death Race 2000, and I happen to be all of these. Everybody else should go for a title with a real 3D engine and stay clear of this stress test - any Carmageddon or Twisted Metal will do.