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Hooters Road Trip

Score: 20%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
Developer: Hoplite Research
Media: CD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Racing

Graphics & Sound:

There comes a point in this game when you have to stop staring at the Hooters girls and start looking at the actual graphics. Unfortunately, they are far less than impressive. You could count the number of polygons on each vehicle if you tried, that is, if the monotone color schemes don't make you turn the game off first. The featureless landscapes don't help the situation either, resulting in an all too unimpressive performance.

Hooters Road Trip provides some of the worst music ever heard in a video game. These tracks, from Hooters Rockin' Presents, hardly even have a place in the restaurant. Even less effort has gone into the sound effects. The roar of the engine is not like a roar at all, but more like a dying weed eater, which gives you that all to irresistible urge to kill the nearest machine around in hopes of stopping the terrible noise.


Gameplay:

Hooters Road Trip is, by far, one of the most watered-down racing games on the market. When the one big selling point of a game is scantily clad women (how many times have we seen this?), rest assured that the remaining parts of the game, mainly the gameplay, will suffer greatly.

Your goal, if you foolishly choose to accept it, is to make cross-country racing trips, hoping to finish within the top three positions. Competing against you are seven other incompetent drivers in cars that are clearly not road worthy. Also trying to bar you from victory is traffic going both ways, if your definition of traffic is vehicles that are manned by completely senseless vehicle enthusiasts.

Finishing a cross country tour in any of the top three positions will not only let you race in the next tour (yipee......?), but will also unlock bonus 'Smoking Rods', as they refer to them. Besides unlocking these new cars, the only other motivation to complete the game, or even come in first, is the chance to get to hang out (virtually, of course) with the seemingly unending supply of Hooters girls. A rather stunning prize indeed, if you happen to be so socially deprived that you actually bought this game in the first place.


Difficulty:

The simple truth is, if the car control wasn't so horridly screwed up, Hooters Road Trip would be a walk in the park. The AI is about as advanced as a dying lab rat's, making the competition more like moving rocks than actual people driving cars. Yet staying away from these enemies is much easier than staying on the road itself, creating a very difficult spin on the racing genre.

Game Mechanics:

The basic idea of any racing game is present all the same in this one, except the developers left out a very crucial part of that idea, which is control that is manageable by human beings. Playing with the keyboard is absolutely impossible. Don't try it. A steering wheel peripheral is somewhat better, but the frustration is still there. And though there are plenty of cars to choose from, somehow it doesn't seem worth the effort trying to unlock the better ones.

Let's put it this way. Don't buy this game unless you're trying to get yourself into some sort of world book of records, and even then, it's not recommended.


-Snow Chainz, GameVortex Communications
AKA Andrew Horwitz

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows 2000/ME/XP, 233 MHZ Processor, 64 MB RAM, 250 MB Free Hard Disk Space, 2 MB Video Card DirectX Compatible, DirectX Compatible Sound Card
 

Test System:



Windows 98, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, GeForce 2 mx 32MB video card, 40 gig hard drive, 56x CD-ROM, 256MB DDR Ram, Sound Blaster Live! sound card, T1 Internet connection

Windows High Heat Major League Baseball 2003 Windows Hotel Giant

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated