WorldRacing Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 12 March, 2003

Tom tackles the Benz in Synetic's curvy racer

Version tested: Xbox

Racing games are hardly uncommon, now, are they? With each passing year, we all watch the endless procession of increasingly beautiful and expansive racers pass us by, like little blurs of metallic lightning. Some are crap and some are good, but the truly excellent ones have uniform stunning visuals, all manner of vehicles to toy with, and varied, authentic tracks. The top one or two per cent will play better than Ridge Racer Type 4. If you only buy a couple every year, the chances are that any given driver has to have Heidi Klum's looks, Michael Schumacher's skill behind the wheel and Jay-K's fleet of sports cars to even come close. Unfortunately for WorldRacing, at first glance it doesn't seem to check all the right boxes.

Benzer

'WorldRacing' Screenshot dec0236b

Mercedes-Benz WorldRacing, to give it the title TDK dropped but the world retained, is centred entirely around one brand of car, and surely that's a problem to start with? However much effort German developer Synetic put into WR, it's always going to be limited in one key area. However, as you gallivant around the globe competing in races, completing the odd mission-based level and free-riding over oodles of scenery, you'll actually unlock as many as 109 cars, both old and new and from every class imaginable.

You see, Mercedes make nice cars, and lots of them. I've driven one in real-life (although I forget which), and they do handle very nicely, they obviously look very swish, and they come in all sorts of reasonably affordable models. There are even off-roaders for goodness sake. So I guess that's one box checked.

And we can tick off awe-inspiring visuals too, because WorldRacing makes huge gains thanks to its amazingly detailed landscapes, which stretch as far as the eye can see and rarely drag the frame rate anywhere south of optimal, except in split-screen multi-player. We've been told that the game can render 6km squared of level, and it's not too hard to believe when you've scrambled your car to the top of a mountain and had a glance over your shoulder…

Walk on water

'WorldRacing' Screenshot dec028b

Few technical compromises have been made, either. Cars are given plenty of detail, from the three-pointed-star to the curve of the chassis and the colour of the seats. Your driver, as selected from a group of rather stern-looking men and women, can clearly be seen from front-side views churning away at the wheel as you donut someone's village green in a C-class, as can your custom number plate, helmet and so on.

The environment is also finely detailed, with massive efforts thrown at everything from Area 51 (complete with flying saucers, fighter jets and scrambling military personnel) and a sun-drenched jungle to snowy Alpine peaks and the rippling seas down in the harbour. This is no Project Gotham in terms of urban detail, but looking at the broader picture as you often are, it's hard not to be taken aback by the serene beauty of it all.

Sadly though, the game lets itself down in other technical areas. We love the look of the game, but the vehicle damage is a bit daft - if you're not going to bother doing it properly, then don't just opt for token dents. It looks mighty stupid when experimental types like myself throw an SLK off the top of a mountain only to land on all four wheels and drive off smoothly. And there's evidence of serious laziness elsewhere - you can drive through people, palm trees and other bits of scenery if you want, and most astonishing of all, you can drive on top of the sea. Despite ships bobbing up and down nearby (which you can of course drive straight through), the water acts like road and even feels like road to drive on. They couldn't even be bothered to fence it off properly - very shoddy.

On the road

'WorldRacing' Screenshot dec0234b

Then there's the final area, which makes all the difference - the handling. Ignoring the fact that wacky UFOs, ocean-racing and granite-strength barriers are trying very hard to upset the flow of realism, Synetic has opted to try and emulate the various Mercedes cars accurately. And unlike Gotham, this means we have to deal as much with of the tedium of real driving as we do with the entertaining side. Handling improves and cars become more fun, the more of the game you unlock, but it's never as smooth and enjoyable as games like Gotham, RalliSport and Racing Evoluzione. These titles cracked the balance between realism and arcade with gusto, and were much better for it. WorldRacing just feels like a simulation of Mercedes-Benz and The National Inquirer.

And there are other niggles, too. The CPU AI is basically modelled on Michael Schumacher as best we can tell. It cheats; it drives to perfection, and losing out on any given turn generally means you won't make up the gap. Only by shunting people around did we ever make much difference. Other problems include Synetic's decision to have the obligatory "replace car on track instantly" button on White and the "rear view" button on Black. Guess how many times we hit the wrong one? It was plenty, and you can't alter the controls. Oh, and then there's the apparent lack of a proper "pick a track and race on it" option. You know, the Single Race bit, which every racing game in existence besides WorldRacing apparently has? As if that wasn't enough, the music is all courtesy of Ministry of Sound. Not for us.

In the end, WorldRacing ticks enough of the boxes to be a contender, but it doesn't have that final lap adrenaline injection to send it sailing through the finish line competitively. It's too hard, it's a bit feebly constructed in places, and it plays too much like real driving, which, for a game laden with UFOs, is a bit of a contradiction.

6 / 10

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Merefield #1 9 years ago

    What a tragedy they didn't go that extra mile. The graphics engine looks as if its basically to die 4...

  • Tiitiz #2 9 years ago

    Graphics are the best ever I have seen in a driving game.

  • Village Idiot #3 9 years ago

    Can you try and swerve round elks in an A-Class ? That would rule.

  • cyber_nicco #4 9 years ago

    Your enthusiasm is appreciated!

  • kururin #5 9 years ago

    it is with great amazement I announce that I hadn't thought this game would be this crap. wow.

  • #6 9 years ago

    kururin? wtf! who let this guy onto my puter?!!

  • #7 9 years ago

    screenies do portray some pretty spectacular landscaping... and stuff. could use a good roam freely into the unknown racer again. lots of fun with games like viper & bigredracing. hm.

  • #8 9 years ago

    war? which war?

  • Henrik #9 9 years ago

    So realistic handling combined with UFOs is a big no-no... *scribbles on notepad* Was that two points off?

  • Henrik #10 9 years ago

    Who's Jay-K anyway? The lumber guy?

  • JA Racer #11 9 years ago

    My first view about Mercedes-Benz World Racing is that this game has some issues but if we consider the fun they are not that important. The menus are the worst menus EVER it's all very confusing. The only 'strange' thing is that you can drive through some obstacles (helicopters and people) but not all. It's a bit unrealistic. Must be a bug.
    I don’t know if I’m being imprudent but I would say that I like it better than GT3, SegaGT2000 and Project Gotham.
    There is brilliant stuff on the game. You can create your on character and chose race and sex, your hair colour and how do you dress. You can fix your opponent’s strength to an X rate. So we can say that the same game will seem different for to different players.
    The music it’s Ok for dose that love jazz but it support custom soundtracks.
    The cars are accurate and on the convertibles you can chose if the top is up or down.
    This title is surely going to pack some great features. First of all, there's not a Mercedes that isn't included this game, or so it seems. Indeed, there are 36 different cars and 136 total variations of these cars. Everything from the classic roadsters to modern AMG models and even some prototypes are included. You can drive classics, 4x4, concepts and real cars trough speedways, deserts, mountains, circuit’s airfields and so on. The cars sound great too.
    Additionally, it's possible to open up more co-pilots, who sit next to you as you drive. When you're in control of such an amazing machine and have a beautiful girl at your side. Want more?
    Handling feels ok and handles convincingly but there’s still a complaint about the way you can twitch left and right while going pretty quick. Not a major thing though.
    The simulation is in fact quite good, and you can configure a lot of difficulty settings. There is a true and precise rear view mirror. You can decide if you want to race with arcade felling or simulator felling (my settings now are: PRO, 100% sim, automatic transmission, no further aids, opponents strength fixed to 100% and dry weather).
    Furthermore I like the opponent A.I. It's realistic, much more than in other race games, and that's a huge plus. I feel I’m driving a real car ... bloody difficult but what a challenge!
    The physics are also great. The cars feel weighty and if you ram someone you will spin them like a bastard. Convincing stuff.
    Truly remarkable are the tracks. They are big, very big, different each time and not boring at all. So if you want to drive for miles and miles (+offroad everywhere possible) it can easily beat Apex/racing evoluzione in this part.
    The graphics are gorgeous. Truly gorgeous. Some of the views will have you drooling. The cars look great to and the replays are good. When you use the in car view you can use the right stick to look around in the car. There's more than just the dashboard that's been accurately modelled.
    There are lots of weather effects:
    Fog, cloudy, sunny, dry, rain, dawn, day, and dusk. No night time though.
    The game with foggy weather is pretty awful; the graphics usually running at 60 frames decrease quality for 30 frames and look like they came from an old pc game. The rain is ok I suppose it runs a little slippery but like with the fog the game looks very boring in these conditions.
    However with sunny and clear weather everything changes drastically and at the same level the graphics are actually pretty nice. You also can choose the weather in the options menu.
    BTW, I haven't had any frame rate problems the last couple of hours. Perhaps the occasional frame rate drop happens only on some tracks.
    Even though it's only a 30% review build, the game already looks amazing.
    So, get used to driving only Mercedes and give this game a chance.

  • Dirtbox #12 9 years ago

    LOL!

    So its basically crap that only sycophantic fanbois cream over... no suprise there then.

    GT3 beater my arse.

  • pjmaybe #13 9 years ago

    "Who's Jay-K anyway? The lumber guy?"

    oooh yeah baby, it's the return...of the space...er, lumberjack..


    Peej

  • JA Racer #14 9 years ago

    Only one more note to add

    There is someone called (Tom from TDK) that is giving support to faqs on several posts

    This is cool.

  • #15 7 years ago

    where did you get it, frod?