Whiplash

The Good
As a single player game this is a great game. As a networked game it is simply magnificent.

The graphics are not a patch on modern driving games, but that doesn't matter. It's brutally fast, and you have no time to look at the scenary. The same can be said for the sound - it lets you know what's going on without intruding.

There are 8 cars to choose from - some slow with great hadnling, some fast with no grip - take your pick. There are 3 championships of 8 races each, with some devastating tracks, including corkscrews and loop-the-loops. The Bonus Cup (the third championship) even has a track with no corners!!

The cars can get damaged, but you can make pit-stops to repair. Too much damage and your car gets destroyed. Destroy soemone else and you earn championship points.

When networked, this game can make or break friendships. At Impossible level (the ONLY level to play at) the races can last up to 12 minutes. That's 12 minutes of sweat-inducing, back-breaking tension, praying that your mates don't take you out on the final bend as your wounded car struggles to cross the line.

The game's best feature is the fact that you actually get to race in a proper championship against 15 opponents (we usually have 6 players and 10 computers in each race) in 8 races, earning points for race position, fastest laps and kills.

Very few games, even today, offer this kind of in depth multi-playing gaming, and the fact that this game does offer this is why it is so damn good.

The Bad
I actually got into a fight with my brother-in-law over this game. It does get that intense if you take it seriously. We've actually stopped playing it for a while because we wanted to stay friends.

Netwroked under Windows tends to make it unstable, and it usually crashes, so we play in DOS. A bit of a pain (especially to those with PCI soundcards), but well worth it.

The Bottom Line
This is the greatest ever networked racing game. Don't bother to argue - you will lose.

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.

The Good
This game I picked up in Interplay's 15th anniversary collection (an excellent deal, by the way).

The Graphics are sweet. Nice colors, great looking courses, and NO slowdown on a P233 (without the music playing, more on that later). 16 cars grace the field, and each looks nice. Fast flying graphics! This game really cruises, and it really give the sense of going 200+ mph. 16 Nicely created courses (8 to begin with, 8 unlocked after winning the championship on Medium difficulty or higher) each created for a specific car (8 car manufacturers, 16 courses).

The Sound is good. Adequate for the time it was released. Typical rev-ving sound of engines...

The Control is loose with the keyboard, but it's not bad for a keyboard control.
It can get difficult, especially when learning new courses.

The Bad
The Music is horrible. With the music playing, it's slow... reaaaaalll slow. But the frame rate triples when the music is off, so needless to say, I play with the music off.

Crash detection is off, and the physics model is pretty weird, you don't really ever flip over unless you hit a jump that causes you to flip over.

Also, allowing the ability to play all 16 courses straight out of the box would have been nice (type GOLDBOY as your name, and you'll get access to the other 8 courses, by the way).

The Bottom Line
It a fun game for non-sim car fans. Serious players, look elsewhere.

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
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.