Just got my hands on Burning Road for the Playstation and thought
I'd let ya all know about this absolute gem of a racer.
After booting up using the safe swaptrick method I was treated to a
rather bland looking menu screen, no FMV, no Galaga, no nothing on
the way in, just straight to business. Four options are present from
the menu screen:
Practice:       Choose one of the 3 initially available (I believe
that there's a fourth hidden)tracks to practice, you can repeatedly
play each track without any loading time between games(each track
loads in about 7-8 seconds).
Championship:   The first 2 tracks are made up of 5laps, whilst the
3rd is made up of 4. To progress from the track to track, you need to
complete the laps within an overall time, your finishing position
doesn't matter as long as you are within this prealocated time. Also
each track is split into check points where the time on your on
-screen clock is boosted, and of course running out of time means
you'rre out! This is one of the strangest things about the game, the
aim of the game being  to score points. At the end of each track
asuming you beat the target time, you will be awarded points, based on
your finishing position, the  time it took you, the amount of car
damage sustained and several  other bonuses. One disapointing feature
is that the game does not seem to support mem cards, so scores can not
be saved. I am still not sure if I prefer this score system over the
standard 'finish in the top three' aim of game championships, but it
is definately novel.
Link Mode;      Yes! Hopefully I should be doing a little linking on
this baby in the next couple of weeks!
Options:        Pretty sparse. Level change between easy, medium
and hard. It defaults to easy, but I've made a point of playing at
medium from the outset. Pad, change the brake and accelerator buttons.
You cannot change the configuration of the shoulder buttons for some
reason, R1 + R2 change gears(unless you choose Automatic transmission
at the car selection), L1 + L2 toggle between one of four ingame
views. You can also alter the sound levels here.
On starting a race, whether in practice or championship modes, you
are given a choice of one of four different cars. Basically the cars
are a compromise between speed and grip. There are four levels of
grip. With the slowest car having level 4 grip, the fastest having
level1, with the other 2 being somewhere in between. After selecting
a car you then are given the choice between either Manual or
Automatic transmission. After about an 8 second or so loading spell,
you are then presented with the game proper.
Straight away one thing will strike you about this game, and that is
SEGA, it has references to various SEGA games everywhere. The scanner
on the right of the screen is straight out of Daytona, as are the
various views. In the in-car view a medallion is hanging off the
mirror(unfortunately you don't get to see this mirror) with the
creaters(Toka) logo upon it, just like the Sonic doll in Rad
Mobile. Alot of the textures throught the 3 levels look like they
have been ripped off of Rally, as does one or two parts of the
tracks, most notably the jumps on the first level. There are loads
of other references , too many too list, and I'm sure there's many
that I have yet to spot.
After the initial surprise of seeing a SEGA game running on a
playstation(Virtua-lly), the next thing to hit you are the GFX, and
my do they hit *hard*. The game is running at a cool 30fps, with a
high level of scenery detail thoughout the game that wizzes by at a
phenomenal speed, fast than even RRR when used with the Devil or
Angel boss cars for pure speed stakes. All the textures used
throughout the game are excellent, being both well drawn and
colourfull. The game is crammed full of interesting visual effects,
the water on the waterfall flows, it is snowing on one part of the
2nd track with a most excellent representation of snow acompying
things here, along with rain on a part of the 3rd track(Rad mobile
springs to mind once again). There are crows that fly across the
screen, helicoptors that fly above you, stunt planes doing tricks, big
747's taking off, water that splashes out of yours' and oponents
tyres, rain that bounces off your bonet, the list is endless. The
scenery and background detail is truely excellent. Also, the game has
some shadow affects, when driving under bridges, overhangs and through
tunnels, the bonet of your car will darken, along with the other cars
infront of you, a small touch, but significant nonetheless. Yet
another neat touch is the fact that as the race progresses your car
starts to show signs of dmage, dents and bends start to appear all
over the car, and most notably yourr rear axle ocassionally bend,
leaving the wheels  spinning at a 45degree angle! I'm still not
certain whether this is just cosmetic or not.Overall the GFX are
absolutely amazing! The Speed at which everything moves is truely
awesome! Combined with the excellent visuall effects and beautifully
drawn textures and backgrounds produce an absolute visual feast. I
have it running infront of me as I speak, it's amazing! There are a
couple of minor anoyances here, firstly the cars are very square, with
the wheels being particularly cubish. Also polygon popup is apparent,
although to no great extent, it has a similiar Z-axis depth as Wipeout
I guess. Polygon breakup is ever so *slightly* noticeable, but nowhere
near the extent of RRR polygon breaking. None of these little
anoyances detract from the overall look of the game, which is quite
frankly, STUNNING!
Toka haven't ignored things in the sound department either. Although
the music is not to my tastes, being mostly American rock, it suits
the game very well indeed, sounding very similiar to some of the
tunes heard in Daytona. The sound FX throughout the game are again
very SEGA-esque, and are of a high quality. Also you there's the now
standard guy who screams abuse at you, and his English is absolutely
terrible. There are lots of errors in grammar throughtout the game.
After finishing a track for instance, instead of being presented with
"You finished 1st", you get "You played 1st"!.
Now I've saved the best to last. Gameplay. This game is an absolute
dream to play! It is very unusual in this respect also. Firstly
whatever car you decide to choose will not only handle different
from the other cars, but also handles very differently depending on
what surface you are driving on, and with the surface of the tracks
changing almost at every corner, it's about the most exciting racer
I've ever come across. During the snow on the second track, most of
the cars respond just like the Toyata in Rally only with a tad less
grip. On the concrete Road on the last track Daytona, with a splash of
Ridge Racer comes to mind. With mud sections, rain sections all being
somewhere in between, and each representing their own different
challenge. The tracks also have there fair share of jumps, being
handled by the driver in a the same way they should be in Rally(and
indeed one jump in particular is ripped straight out of Rally). Of the
views available the game is far more enjoyable with the incar view,
here the bonnet of your car bounces up and down the screen with
absolute agression after hitting bumps and jumps, the effect really
does add to the 'feel' of the game, and 'feel' is where this game
scores so highly The bumper view is also quite nice. You also have
two-outside views which I haven't used, I never use outside views.
After finishing a track a complete replay of the race is shown. The
game alternates between in-game views and some pretty artistic
 camera shots, Fly by shots, pans, zoom ins, Scorsese would be proud,
It's a rather nice feature, that definately helps you get to grips
with things whilst learning tracks, it is a pity you have no control
over the camera though. I've now had the game for little over a day
and I'm still learning to play it, it's tough, but I'm learning
The controls are absolutely excellent. At the moment I am using a pad,
and it is extremely responsive. Unlike RRR, when retro steering in
order to control fish-tailing, the response is smooth as silk. If you
loose control in this game, it's your fault and you know it.  The
control system used in this game is nigh on perfect. I should pick up
a wheel in the next couple of weeks, most likely the Mad Catz(anyone
give me the lowdown on this??). IMO up till now the playstation hasn't
had decent enough racers to warrant the additional purchase of a wheel
(120$ minimum here in the UK), but all of this has just changed!
The best way to describe this game is with one word and that word is
SEGA. This has bits of all of SEGAs best racing games, Rally's in
here, Daytona, Rad Mobile etc..Infact surprisingly it is Rad Mobile
which this game reminds me of most. If a polygon version of
RadMobile was released today it would like uncannily like this.
Maybe if the GFX were cleaned up a *little*, this could be
SEGA's most popular racer in the arcades right now. But, it's not
made by SEGA, it's not an arcade game, it's made by Toka, produced
by Funsoft, and made for the Sony Playstation. If you own a
Playstation, buy this now! It's quite simply AWESOME, and without
a doubt the best racer available for any home system currently
available! BAH! Who needs Rally?
94% Rating
I've now played the game for about 10 hours or so. I can now complete
it on all levels beating the pre-set high score(some of the above was
written much earlier today), although I've still yet to finish all 3
courses in first place. I think I'm gonna have to get used to the
faster less controllable cars. Believe that 94% rating! I am still as
impressed with this game now, as I was when I first booted it up
yesterday. I love racers, and I know a good one when I see one, and
this is without a doubt the very best! This is going to be so much FUN
linked!!!!!
To help you put the above into context:
	Wipeout:89% (UK version)
	Ridge Racer Revolution: 79% (Japanese version)
	SEGA Rally:90%(Japanese version)
Seeya.
Spencer.
   /Spencer Stapleton/ 
/Spencer@mail.bogo.co.uk/ 
 /London, Great Britain/