Racing Evoluzione Comments by Tom Bramwell

If only it had Live support

This is very true. If it did and it worked well. 10/10?

Probably not. It's still too flawed for a ten in my view. I just couldn't live with giving it 8/10, which is where I initially wanted to go with it.

But, golly gosh, they *must* do a sequel which expands on the car company element. I'd love something which mixed elements of "fun" strategy/management titles like Theme Hospital (which I mentioned) and a good racer. Without being stupidly realistic.

Do you realise that over the next few months, a racing game of some description is due out every Friday?

And therein lies one of the major problems with the industry today. Glad to see this one's a bit different, though.

Well it just skips the March game madness so I might pick this one up now. Highly rated in Xgamer as well I believe

Sh*t!!!!! You did it again (last time was MotoGP)! I had already convinced myself to skip this one. F*ck!!!

Edit: I'm calm now. Hey, rauper, if I pre-order this, Panzer Dragoon and Metroid (where's Super Monkey Ball 2?) from the EG shop, will I pay delivery charges twice (as PDO and MP are released on the same day)?

jaa: No, you pay one delivery charge per order, not per shipment

Super Monkeyball 2 was gonna be up there last week.... Hang on...........

Maybe you should have bought a TV that can do a decent justified stretched image then? ;)

Yes, they should release more widescreen titles.

I think ill be buying this, can you set your revs though? Because in Project Gotham you could only increase them by varying amounts or ease off completely.

"pass the arsehat" - Top putdown of the year!

And so it seems Eurogamer is in direct opposition to Edge once more (who gave this five... I think).

I know who I trust though. ;)

Perhaps this'll be the racing game I pick up for my 'box... but then I'm still umming and aahing over Quantum Redshift.

Oh, and what's up with the title? I can understand it being called 'Apex' in the US (I mean who'd want to buy a game with a foreign name over there) but I'm still surprised it's not called Racing Evolution or something over here. But then it'd be a bit close to Total Immersion Racing, I reckon.

But is it as good as Dreamcast F355?

rauper: I think I'll pre-order Zelda too, then. And The Mark of Kri. :)

Hurry up with SMB2. And Ikaruga.

(Bankrupt again...)

Yep. April 15th, according to ssuellid.

I only posted that 4 days ago and complete forgot.

I didn't. :)

"The racing model is somewhere between Gotham and Gran Turismo..."

I don't think so. What seems to be missing from RE is weight transfer from front to back and v.v. during braking and acceleration. In PGR, it seemed to be there. Try the San Francisco hills, and accelerate or brake just before hitting the top of the hill.

Additionally, the road sides in RE feel very artificial. Notably the mountain roads (up to 11Km) have those annoying sides that artificially slow you down significantly rather than screw up your traction.

I'd rate the PGR physics higher.

Have anyone else felt that this game is a little on the easy side? I don't know if it's my ultrastrong racing kung fu that made me win the first 23 races in the game or something...but I did so with seldom more then a little effort.

It's an amazing game though, certainly one to put on the list. But don't expect a racing sim though.

Perhaps this'll be the racing game I pick up for my 'box... but then I'm still umming and aahing over Quantum Redshift.

Go for it, its only 20quid at GAME. Its pretty tough but so so fast.

I think one of the biggest reasons this won't be such a huge hit is the name... Evoluzione? Sounds like an Italian name, and I generally dislike the language. And I doubt I'm alone. Of course, I also thought that the game would be a flop, so maybe I'm wrong here too. It's still a stupid name, though.

You dislike the Italian language? It's the most beautiful language I know.

I was reading all dose comments and I can’t believe that I fund some one given 10/10 or 8/10.
I collect almost all race games from the last 25 years and this one was not for sure the ultimate.
The best that this game had was the ingenious publicity that sold an offer different from the final product.
You aren't allowed to do any upgrading at all. You don't create a car or have any input into it, you just pick from 3 fictional cars and go from there. As you progress and earn enough money and sales, you are automatically upgraded to the next class. Your car is made faster and a little flashier. There are 3 classes for each car, street, evolution and racing. The racing class of car has logos and stuff on it, but you don't have a choice of what colour it is or anything cosmetic.
Then we have sound bugs freeze problems and no feedback from the creators.
But the worst part of the game is the AI for sure the catch-up AI punishes you for being good driver, and rewards you for being bad. All the AI does is crash into you. But if you bump with them back, they don't move and when the bumper cars are right behind you, it seems more like a crash racing then a racing game. When does creators will understand that the massive majority of gamers dislike catch-up AI?
If we mention the Rubber band, the bumper cars and nonsense collisions that IA does we hardly can talk about a racing game, an arcade maybe but not a race for sure.
Even though the problems and bugs, I took some fun of the game.
I bought it and I’m not sorry, I would buy it again even knowing about all the problems.
However, I’ll never advise this game as a first choice.
I’m pretty sure that I would recommend instead Moto GP, GT2002, PGR, Colin McRae 3 and RSC first, because they are worth and solid buys.

I think that we can rate it with 6.5/10

Rating Apex:

01 - Computer IA? (6/10)
02 - Cars? (8/10)
03 - Customization? (5/10)
04 - Sound effects? (4/10)
05 - Music quality? (4/10)
06 – Graphics / Tracks? (9/10)
07 - Races repetition? (8/10)
08 - Game modes? (8/10)
09 - Challenging? (7/10)
10 - Expectation vs Reality vs Originality? (6/10)

Final rate 6.5 / 10

For a more detailed review check this link: Racing Evoluzione

http://www.eurogamer.net/eg_display_articles.php?thread_id=1
530&forum_id=1

After playing this for a few hours, I must say I'm disappointed. I totally agree with William. The handling in Project Gotham is way better. And the sound effects are just ridiculous...

I beat Apex some weeks ago. I can’t remember such a disappointing end.You can't even go back to the race menu in dream mode after it is complete. It just rolls credits every time you go there. If you beat the black driver at the end of the game it will open all dream cars in arcade mode. If there is any cars that you didn't build while playing in dream mode and you want to open them in arcade mode you will have to start another save game and start over and build the cars that you are lacking. I guess this was their idea of replay value.

I rented this on its original release and was bitterly disappointed. Instead of being on an equal footing with PGR as the review suggested, it's a poor relation. The handling is loose and arcadey and while the race graphics are pretty good this doesn't hold true for the 'career' sections of the game. Tracks are limited in number and repetitive and the AI is the worst I've seen for years. Your rivals will rubber-band if you get too far in front or have a crash and there are many situations (like the spin-outs) where your competitors' actions seem overtly scripted. I wouldn't even buy this turkey on budget - best get PGR, Rallisport and Moto GP to satisfy your racing urges for now :)