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World
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There are rare instances when nearly the entire popular gaming media suffers an
attention lapseand misinterprets a truly great title. Such is the case with World Driver
Championship. Major gaming periodicals such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamers'
Republic gave WDC scores indicative of mere mediocrity, while "professional"
reviewer Ryan MacDonald of Videogames.com unleashed a woeful score of 5.7 on the game.
Remember, WDC was once heralded as the N64's answer to Gran Turismo. So is the
game really awful? Or is it the paragon of automobile simulations, leaving Gran Turismo
floundering in its own pixellated exhaust?
The answer: WDC is something completely different. Unwilling to compromise its focus on
the pure exhilaration of racing, WDC lacks tedious vehicle customization options, vehicle
damage, and real-world car licenses. Yet it proves a game need not follow a hyperrealistic
and oft-confining simulation formula to achieve immense depth, serious challenge, and the
gritty adrenaline rush of muscling through a pack of unyielding high-horsepower
adversaries. WDC is a beast all its own, a game of exceptional balance, and an utterly
confusing aberration to "professional" reviewers unable to recognize a very real
and expansive middle ground between Arcade and Simulation.
This seems to be the major point of contention among the "professionals" who have exhibited such a lukewarm reaction to WDC. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. If you are unwilling to learn a game's driving system, if you are unwilling to learn the distinctive nuances of a game's racing engine, if you are unwilling to accept a game's challenge and start climbing that steep learning curve, and furthermore you are unwilling to judge the game on its own merits, but would rather whine and bitch about how this game is not Need For Speed or Gran Turismo, then why play the game at all? And how dare you write a review of a game you haven't even learned how to play???!!!
WDC has been lambasted for starting off too slow...Well, the first two cars made available to you are a Porsche and a Mustang. They are not called Porsche and Mustang; they have fictional names. But they are a Porsche 911 and a Mustang all the same. Compared to the later cars they are indeed slow, and compared to the later cars they do have clunky control. But with a reasonable amount of practice time even these cars can be nudged around the courses with a good deal of accuracy. For crying out loud, the comments I've read in some magazines made me think I'd be in a Pinto lurching back and forth across the track, smacking into wall after miserable wall, screaming at the game and ripping my analog stick out of its socket! Yet this is not the case. I say again, the first two cars are a Porsche and a Mustang. You must be gentle with them. You must learn how they shift and sway. You can't just yank the analog stick, slam into a wall, get pissed off and yell "This game sucks!" The more you practice, the more you are rewarded by achieving skill, wisdom, intuition. You must become one with your car. As you advance, you unlock increasingly formidable machines, and merging into a nirvana-like blissful symbiosis with your car becomes easier.
But it must be understood that it is possible to race respectably with even the
lowliest cars of the lot. And what about the powersliding? Well, if you ever care to
analyze the computer cars as they race, you'll notice they tend to slide alot less than
you. Racing like them is possible. It involves alot more braking into turns, much less
acceleration out of those same turns, and much less risk-taking. However, racing like the
AI will relegate you to mediocrity on the racing circuit. If you want to win, you must
take chances. If you want to pass other cars, you must learn how to ease off in a turn at
the last possible second, you must learn how to gamble and pass on the outside, you must
learn how to downshift as an alternative to braking. And you must have the balls to master
the art of sliding through turns. Anyone can place in the top half of the pack, anyone can
score a lucky victory now and then. But to consistently win, to consistently dominate the
field, you must take the risks that no one else dares take. This is where powersliding
comes into play in WDC. You don't have to powerslide. You can learn to keep your car stuck
perfectly to the road. But then you won't win a damn thing. And on the other side of the
coin, if all you do is go ripping into turns F-Zero X style, spilling out a wake of heavy
skid marks and smoke, with no regard for the demands of the racecourse, you will hit
nearly every wall, you will be overtaken, you will get frustrated, and you will
fail. This is why the powerslide is such a deep element in WDC. In order to attain
true mastery of it, you must also know when not to use it. It's like karate. It's like the
Force.
Players with patience and determination will be rewarded with gameplay that unfolds into
the finest racing experience on the N64. Races take place in famous locales all over the
world, on variations of one comprehensive course layout for each locale. Sometimes the
course variations are slight, and your approach to the race at that particular locale will
be for the most part unchanged. Other times the variations are significant, changing the
entire complexion of the course, and you will be forced to create new strategies for
once-familiar turns and entirely alien expanses of road. The actual races are
extraordinarily competitive affairs, with the best automobile AI I've ever seen. While in
F1 World Grand Prix it was often the case that a computer car would back off if
aggressively challenged on a tight curve, the cars in WDC are usually unyielding. They
will not shy away from direct contact, and will even run you off the road or spin you out.
You can do the same to them, although any contact will inevitably forfeit a few precious
seconds from your lap time. Passing other cars is a challenge that requires consummate
knowledge of the course and the courage to approach a turn at risky speed on a
less-than-ideal line. Until you acquire the real supercars later in the game, you can
forget about passing on the straightaways.
As you advance in skill as a driver and win events, you are approached by various racing teams and given the opportunity to drive better cars. You must first progress through the GT2 circuit, where nearly all the cars are recognizable unlicensed versions of real-world machines like the Ford Mustang, Lotus Elan, and Dodge Viper.
When you complete the GT2 circuit, you move on to GT1, where the racing is far more fierce and the automobiles much stronger, much lighter, and much more exotic. I'm sure some of the GT1 cars also have real-world counterparts, but I'm not enough of a GT racing follower to know which ones are reality-based. All the GT1 cars look like four-wheeled spaceships, and their lack of weight makes them extremely nimble. Racing at the GT1 level is a rare thrill that demands the utmost in perseverance and concentration, more so as the events become longer and the AI more powerful.
Unless you have been living in an igloo with your Inuit wife Mukla on a
wind-and-sea-scraped island in the icy Bering Strait, you have heard the raves regarding
WDC's visual splendor. WDC is a graphical quantum leap beyond Boss Game's earlier N64
auto-racing effort Top Gear Rally. Gone are the barren landscapes, the empty roads, the
horrible tree sprites that looked like giant stalks of broccoli. Now up to eight cars
command your screen at once, powering through some of the finest artwork to grace the
console. There's plenty to behold: perfect expanses of road, fluid tunnels, lush
environments with mountains, waterfalls, and carefully crafted and positioned vegetation;
dense, glowing cities; famous landmarks such as the Roman Colosseum and the Excalibur
Hotel in Las Vegas; harmonious Alpine backdrops, rich nighttime lighting, flashing turn
indicators, various aircraft operating above the racecourses; a retina-searing lens flare;
and of course brilliant car models which react admirably in multi-hued light and shadow.
Contrary to IGN64, I recommend racing in the available hi-res letterbox mode. You must
endure occasional framerate drops on some hard curves, and the field of view is more
limited than in standard resolution. However, after many, many hours of play, I have come
to the conclusion that the framerate drops have an insignificant effect on gameplay (much
like in Goldeneye), and once you learn the courses, a smaller field of vision is a
manageable trade-off for the beauty and functionality of the high resolution option.
Please understand that the gameplay experience is hardly hampered at all by the
limitations of high resolution, so there's no major reason not to treat yourself to WDC in
its maximum visual glory.
A note on the tracks: all of them are gorgeous. For instance, the Kyoto course, a night
track, successfully conveys the aura of racing into the core of steamy, densely populated
Japanese urbana. From the delicate fences and streetlights on the city outskirts to the
hives of lighted buildings to the colorful graffiti on the tunnel wall as you roar into
the city's heart, the Kyoto course delivers. Likewise, the Rome course unveils a sweeping
pastoral horizon, recognizable ancient monuments and pleasing stretches of cobblestone
road. Las Vegas, another night course, bombards you with
a universe of optical stimuli on the main drag, its thousands of lights approaching
thethreshold of seizure inducement. Beetle Adventure Racing's take on Las Vegas was very
good, but WDC's is superior in terms of visual intensity. Believe me when I say that the
first time you race this course your sense of sight will be so overwhelmed you will have
trouble determining where to drive. Then there's the Zurich
course.....Wow....(speechless)......You really have to see it.
I'm very glad Boss opted for straight-up rock music in WDC instead of techno or funk. A serious car game deserves grinding guitars. However, the problem with music in a serious automobile racer is that it often becomes intrusive, as your focus necessarily becomes attuned to more important sounds: the sound of your own car on the road, the whine and grumble of your engine as you cycle through the gears, the ominous din of opponents gaining on you. Thus I think any kind of music can be significantly grating in a game where the demands of racing put a serious strain on your senses. Having said that, I've found myself able to race adequately with WDC's music set to a lower volume, yet I prefer the music off. It's a shame there is no option to have the music on only during menus, because the songs are not at all bad. The upside to having no music during races (besides being able to concentrate better) is that you get an additional four channels of sound (8 total). This means greater audio ambience overall as it allows for more car sounds and some really neat enviromental audio-strobing when you pass running water or an airport (screaming plane engines), etc. The Kyoto course even features crickets. Or perhaps they are locusts, I'm not sure which. It's some kind of buzzing insect.
As noted by IGN64, some odd crackling is occasionally apparent with the music off; however it doesn't occur often, and the more you play the game the less thought you will give to it. All the cars feature distinct sounds, some quite gratifying, some downright obnoxious. Yet each car's sound is a significant contributor to that machine's overall personality, which is in turn an extension of the driver's personality; so while one player may find a particular car's sound to be utterly appalling, another player may find that car's growl or squeal perfectly suited to his own disposition. One positive observation: some of the cars, though offered by different driving teams and unique to each team, are in fact manufactured by the same carmaker. For example, two separate teams offer cars made by a company called Elan. The GT2 team offers the Elan Swift, while the GT1 team makes available the Elan Scorpion. While these cars exhibit completely different behavior on the racecourse, they do have one endearing feature in common: a whusk-whusk-whusk sound that is completely independent of the cars' different engine sounds, and becomes faster and more noticeable at higher speeds. It makes one think of the rag-tag thumping of a loose speedometer cable, and it is an eccentricity unique to the Elan-made automobiles. This bit of immaculate attention to detail is only one reason why WDC is so rewarding, on so many levels.
Damn, this is a good game. After many days and many hours of intense racing, hundreds if not thousands of practice laps, the entire GT2 circuit and a good portion of GT1, I can honestly say World Driver Championship is one of the most gratifying titles I have ever played. It is one of those special games capable of lifting you to that certain place in your mind where you are in the flow, as the basketball players say.
The level of immersion is very deep, so much so that you can easily kill two hours just taking practice laps, endlessly honing the perfect line around a course, tightening your command on the car, admiring the scenery, or merely spinning in circles, smearing rubber onto the road in tight double-spirals. If you want a quick race on any course you've unlocked, with any car you've unlocked, against seven capable opponents, the option is there. If you want to race against a friend, the option is there. And, of course, if you want a long-lasting, world-travelling, car-unlocking, skill-testing, life-affirming serious racing challenge, the Championship mode awaits.
The various cars and teams offer a diverse enough experience to warrant going back and playing through the Championship mode again. Myself, I've stuck mainly to the Elan cars, so there's a wealth of untapped automobile potential to explore beyond the completion of the GT1 circuit. I must also mention WDC's tremendous rumble pak support, especially noteworthy on Rome's cobblestone patches and Zurich's storm drain. It's hard to explain, but WDC actually succeeds in conveying the feel of driving atop a steel grid at that one point in the Zurich course.
The replay mode is amazing as well: engaging the behind-the-car view, you can swing your view in a horizontal plane 360 degrees around the car, allowing you to view your race from a host of drool-inducing angles. You can view an entire race in replay mode. This is quite a feat. I'm not going to dwell on it further, because (sheesh) it's only a replay. But it's done so well and is so glorious to behold that it's nearly as immersive as playing the game.
Yeah. Framerate drops a little in hi-res, musical score is unrevolutionary, and no
realtime car damage. But what WDC doesn't have is more than made up for in terms of Fun
Factor, which is off the scale if you are willing to learn how to play the game.
Straights:
Beautiful, Challenging, Deep, Fun
Finally, a badass car game for N64!
At least the music isn't by John Tesh
Chicanes:
No realtime car damage
Strange audio crackle (minor)
Makes you drool (bad for clothes)
No nudity