Another title, Another winner!

Motor Toon GrandPrix, released by Sony Computer Entertainment,
and Bandit Inc. for around $50 in Japan.

Despite its cartoonish look, this motor race game hides some
serious programming. One player or two player-split screen, three
major courses, five match-race courses, and five dual (side by
side) courses. Three difficulty levels, five completely different
cars, a different soundtrack for each course, four VR views,
instant full-screen rear-view at a push of a button, and an
excellent race-replay for winners that switches from track-cams
to air-cam in a dizzying display of full-freedom of viewpoint.

I say cartoonish, because thats exactly what it looks like: a
Warner Bros cartoon: Japanese have a weak spot about the size of
Tokyo for cuteness, and MTGP gives it to them in truck loads.

Each car is made up of lots of fully textured polygons, that
warp and twist in response to road and steering, and the car
has a "face" on the front grill...are you getting the idea?

The Playstation shows off:

The race-track scenery is multi-colored gourand shaded
polygons, giving a lovely continuous contour to everything,
plus a heaps of textured objects (more on these in a sec).
You can drive almost anywhere (within wide boundaries around
the track) but the track is usually, but not always, the fastest
place to be. Of course, you can drive the course backwards.
There are loads of jumps and different surface types, plus if you
pick up a bonus the driver appears in place of the car, and you
get to run like crazy for a while, at a higher speed than
your car is capable of (strange, but think cartoons, and it makes
more sense).

The whole thing is incredibly smooth. There is heaps
more to gawp at the Ridge Racer, and it all goes past at a
silky speed. Only in one place in a couple of tracks does
the frame rate become visible for a second, (just to remind you
what it was like to play 3DO games).

Each track has a completely different theme, and the cartoon
concept allows a lot of imagination! One track I just saw has
a huge 3D statue of a penguin dominating it, rather like the
giant Sonic in Daytona 500.

And the soundtracks are perfect! The advanced track sound
track (Gulliver House) is my favourite. An orchestral piece,
maddeningly familiar, that wouldn't shame a scene from Fantasia,
meanwhile, you whiz round the "land of the giants".
To give you an idea of how much _stuff_ there is whizzing past,
here is a running description of this advanced track:

At the start, your chosen driver rotates down in a shower of
sparks into your car, you take off on a straigtaway through
some huge toys (Gulliver remember!). A TV-set on the left, a
Playstation in the foreground, an alarm clock at the right.
all these objects are not flat textures, they are all totally
3D, viewable from any angle.

Oh yes, I forgot, there are semi-transparent bubbles floating
in the air, plus some large gold stars. The "sky" is a picture
of the walls of a childs room.
Drive past some teddy bears into a canyon of colored blocks
all along this track, large playing cards point the way.

Past slices of bread, round a corner through a row of candles,
till the road splits around a huge bowl of fruit, with polygonal
bananas, apples, texture mapped cherries, strawberries and grapes.
The colors and detail is gorgeous.
Continue over a bridge spanning a sink, complete with bubbles,
a tap. Sink plop and drip noises interlace with the background
music.

Then thre road splits... take the left and you have a billiard
table, with multi-colored and numbered billiard balls to dodge
round, and the sound of a billiard room now over the bg music.
the playing cards point you on to an airconditioning duct, with
3d bolts and screws that you have to dodge around. Then its
out into the open, where the right hand side road rejoins but
seperated by a wall of dominoes, with gaps to dodge across.

If you had taken the right fork earlier, you get a tunnel of
little sweets, then out to a gambling table with chips and
green bet boxes, then its round a roulette wheel, with
clicking noises as you jump from number to number. Pass through
a forest of standing crayons, and you get to the dominoes.

Continue, and its through an amazing corridor of floating bubbles
and stars, under which are strung wires with all the flags of
the world lined up.. Now, into a tricky left,right,left and you
find yourself motoring past huge fish tanks. Looking into
the blue-glass tanks reveals a bunch of textured fish and
water-plants in 3-space. Of course, fish tank sounds play here.
Then, past a poster of the world, gets into a double-back road
lined by semi-cracked eggs and cooking items. Round a disk of
food with a huge 3d fork, and its out over the keys of a piano,
which of course plays notes (Tom Hanks would love this).

Ok, onward. A ringing antique telephone, past a vase of
flowers, through some more candles, and out onto a chessboard,
full of pieces. picking a fast path past these gets you
to more bubbles, a toy train, and its back to the start with
the playstation and TV still flickering on the left! Whew!

Now you have to learn to get 1st place so you can enjoy a
perfectly filmed replay from start to finish of your winning
run, shot from all possible angles!

Ok, so its cute. Does it play well?


Despite all the dripping cuteness (and that never stopped Super
Mario Cart from being fun IMO), it is quite hard to master.
Each car is so totally different (one has a turbo that winds up
suddenly, one is off-road, inviting "short-cut" exploration,
one is slower but with rail-like handling. The courses are
long (even the short beginners course takes a minute per lap)
and have lots of scope for good technique to pay off. The car
control includes "slip" which is kind of like handbrake turn
so its more than just button-on-accelerate. The jumps are long
and risky.. So, I think it does play well.

Split screen is very fun... All racing games, even sad
ones, are fun split-screen. But the smoothness and the detail,
and the music, and the track choice, and the control makes this
exceptional.

For anyone thinking of getting this on import, do it! all the
screen words are english except for some of the tip screens..

--
Justin Beech
pp002846@interramp.com