Speedster

"From the Atlantic to Atlantis you take on the finest Speedsters in vehicles ranging from the High-Performance Europa Tourer to the manic Dune Buggy or Heavy-duty HGV. Speedster is purely about racing. Against the clock. Against fierce competition. Against the odds. Have you got what it takes?"

A graphically stunning racing game from Clockwork Games that is both challenging and near impossible to beat. Clockwork went onto release Vanishing Point and equally stunning game but with same basic issues including the need to race the championship over and over.

The novice and intermediate modes are just warmups and especially with the performance vehicles challenging enough. But the real test is the Pro Championship. There is not catchup mechanic. If you dare to slow down and lose the opponents, then you are done. They never let up and rarely crash. Each car has its own handling characteristics and can make or break your run depending on how well you can handle the chosen vehicle. The dune buggy is slow but also turns on a dime with a minute turning arc. The HGV vehicle is really slow to accelerate but not too slow but also slips and slides with a huge turning arc. Controlling the vehicles can take getting used to as the auto cantering can work against you oversteering in the wrong direction.

You are also racing against the clock, but this is the least of your worries as if you are far enough behind for the clock to run out, you weren't in the running anyway. Another mechanic is car damage. Getting knocked around or scraping the walls will damage the vehicle. After receiving critical damage, the car will come to a stop and game over. Fortunately, the opponent cars take damage as well so on the faster tracks there is a chance thew opposition will smash themselves to bits. It can be annoying that the opponent vehicles are not affected by car physics stats and often seem to run boosted stats compared to your own. The HVG in the game's hands can take corners at full speed without sliding at all.

Each of the game's tracks look great, and I try to switch between viewing modes in each race to show them off with the odd one lap replay thrown in to show those angles. The music isn't too bad either, but I think Rush Hour has better music of the same style.

The game has some bonus unlockable which I show whilst also dragging out the video, but I guess we will know how long it takes to unlock everything and beat the game. Novice difficulty should be called practice mode and doesn't reward anything. I show this once for both vehicle categories just to show speed difference but otherwise is not needed for game completion. Intermediate difficulty is six races and winning it will unlock one of four bonus cars depending on your vehicle choice. Racing bonus cars unlocks nothing. These need completing eight times, four for each category. Pro difficulty consists of eight races the first time and beating these rewards you with the bonus track which now becomes part of the championship. Completing the championship again rewards the Reverse Championship. Completing this will then reward the Super championship consisting of eighteen races.

Heavy metal vehicles are slower and generally easier to drive so maybe the championships should be easier to beat with these vehicles. However, I noted that when using heavy Metal vehicle, for the final track - Sucken city, the opponent cars just leave you in the dust leaving the championship unbeatable even after dominating the previous eight tracks. Maybe a game bug leaving this track unbalanced for the trucks as the opponents seem to be on rails with boosted stats. Some tracks in the High-performance races also seemed to have really tight time limits used the Stock Car to complete the super championship but I wouldn't advise it due to how slippery it is to control.

The longplay is a bit of a mess but shows everything including races not needed for completion. Overall presentation is a little lacking with no intro or outro and the end credits also appear in one of the demo reels anyway.

00:00:00 Titles
00:01:12 Heavy Metal - Dune Buggy - Novice - Championship
00:18:56 Heavy Metal - Dalas Pick-up - Intermediate - Championship (Unlocks Badger)
00:46:18 Heavy Metal - Badger - Pro - Championship (Unlocks Sunken City Track)
01:30:34 High performance - Yellow Thunder - Novice - Championship
01:43:45 High performance - Red Flash - Intermediate - Championship (Unlocks Hot Hatch)
02:09:00 High performance - Hot Hatch - Pro - Championship (Unlocks reverse Championship)
02:54:58 Heavy metal - Ranger - Intermediate - Rev Championship (Unlocks HGV)
03:21:15 High Performance - Europa Tourer - Intermediate - Rev Championship (Unlocks Super Blue)
03:42:45 High Performance - Super Blue - Pro - Rev Championship (Unlocks Super Championship)
04:23:18 Heavy Metal - Jeepster - Intermediate - Rev Championship (Unlocks Trooper)
04:47:45 Heavy Metal - Dune Buggy - Intermediate - Rev Championship (Unlocks Monster Truck)
05:14:10 High Performance - Silver Bullet - Intermediate - Rev Championship (Unlocks M4 Saloon)
05:34:55 High Performance - Yellow Thunder - Intermediate - Rev Championship (Unlocks Stock Car)
05:55:40 High Performance - Stock Car - Pro - Super Championship
07:21:15 Demo showing 2 player mode