Star Wars Episode I: Racer

It was a bold move to base a tie-in on a relatively small segment of the movie, but it paid off. Episode I: Racer brought podracing to life and is both faithful to and expands upon its source. As a racing game, it has an impressive amount of depth compared to what had been seen previously, on the N64 at least: podracers can be pitched, repaired on the fly, flip vertically and even blow an engine if a boost is held too long. The game's frame rate and speed is very impressive with an Expansion Pak installed, as is the discreet fogging, though admittedly not perfect; visually demanding sections of track can occasionally cause issues. Quite a solid racer nonetheless.

Episode 1 Racer is a racing game, expanding on the Pod Racing scene in Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Obviously, the game looks very dated now and suffers from poor draw distances; but is surprisingly playable. There's minimal graphical options and no option to change the resolution.

I was impressed with the sense of speed which is important to recreate the feeling from the film. You start with the Tatooine track from the film, but there's loads of other tracks based on various planets with completely different aesthetics. The tracks often have multiple routes with some routes been shortcuts. Each planet has its own cinematic introduction.

There's 12 opponents, presumably the characters that appeared in Episode 1. The main characters would be Anakin and Sebulba. You can choose to play as anyone, but I stuck with Anakin.

You can boost at any point by press forward to charge, then press X to activate. Boosting for long periods can overheat your vehicle which does damage. You are only mildly penalised for destroying your vehicle, since you simply respawn rather than ending the race. You can repair light damage at the cost of a speed reduction whilst the repair is happening. You can use the right stick to spin to fit through tight gaps although it wasn't necessary to use. It seemed some characters have a flame weapon but it was rare to see it used.

The difficulty is far too easy at the start, then inconsistent after that, but maybe it depends on your skill level on each track. I thought it seemed really difficult to catch up when you fall behind, yet if you are in front, then you seem to stay there. It's either coincidence that it felt that way, or they implemented the rubber-banding backwards.

Once you finish the race you earn money if you finished in the top 4. You can purchase upgrades with this money. Upgrades from the Scrapyard are cheaper than Watto's Shop but you need to repair them to get the benefits of them. This system doesn't seem to be explained in the game, but I think that's how it worked.

Due to the difficulty and amount of races, you will only get a few days game time out of Episode 1 Racer. However, it is very fun whilst it lasts.