2016/4/18: Game Boy Advance: Road Rash Jailbreak, Sega Rally Championship

[VideoGameCritic]

Let's hear your thoughts on these two GBA racing reviews.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

This is a welcome surprise. Polygon games on the GBA are difficult to love. There's so many sacrifices to even get a 3D engine running at a playable speed. Giant pixels are the norm, even by Atari 2600 standards, and you chose to review the engine with the largest pixels of them all.

Plus sprites running at a higher resolution, so that you can't help but be aware of what you're missing.

But you saw the beauty in the game mechanics, even when compared to a visually superior sprite engine. Well done. This is the kind of review I wish had been written during the GBA's official lifespan.

If you're ever curious about what else is out there, may I recommend Need for Speed: Most Wanted? It's polygon cars racing through what's essentially a Doom style engine - something more realistic for the GBA's specs. Squint, and at times it could almost pass for a Saturn game. But the real reason to play it, is what it doesn't include. Forget realism, other than a muted palette that's really out of character for the series, realism has no place here. This is a game designed to encourage you to go full speed with d-pad control, down cities which were obviously built purely for the sake of the race. The police presence is so easily escaped that you can disable the GUI and never know you were breaking the law. (recommended)

I think the 80's would have loved it.

[Atariboy]

I own Most Wanted on the GBA and another one for the DS (Carbon, I think) since I wanted to test the series out years ago on Nintendo handhelds. They were such disappointments that I never bothered to buy any other entries. I think the GBA has much better 3D racers than those.

V-Rally 3 puts Sega Rally Advance to shame. Such a amazing 3D portable racer, especially when you run it in cockpit mode instead of the chase view. Top Gear Rally for the GBA also was a much better polygonal racer than Sega Rally or any of the other 3D racers on the system besides V-Rally (But ignore the sprite scaling Top Gear GT Championship from the GBA's launch; It's one of the worst racers I've ever played).

GBA also had some very nice Mode 7 style 3D racers in the form of the GT Advance series. And if anyone enjoys Super Burnout on the Atari Jaguar and other arcade bike racers like the well reviewed Moto Racer Advance on the GBA that the Critic loved, MotoGP on the GBA is also very fun. The graphics and gameplay remind me very much of that impressive 2D sprite scaling Jag classic.

Of course, none of these surpass the 2D overhead title, Racing Gears Advance. I wish we had gotten the planned DS sequel to that one, but alas it was cancelled before it was finished.

[Sut]

It still makes me want to gouge my eyes out when I see a Sega game on a Nintendo console let alone a flagship Saturn title.

This version sounds interesting might pick it up if I can find it cheap.

[scotland]

It still makes me want to gouge my eyes out when I see a Sega game on a Nintendo console let alone a flagship Saturn title.

If it makes you feel any better, you can soon see a Nintendo game on your mobile phone, even a flagship franchise like Pokemon.



The 'Pixel Soup' comment reminded me of a recent article advocating the best way to play original Playstation games is on a PSOne with that little portable 5" LCD screen attached. Small screens mask many issues. Wonder if we should play our PS1 games on a glasstron.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

V-Rally 3 puts Sega Rally Advance to shame.

Different strokes for different folks, I'm glad you can enjoy it, but the textures in that engine stretch and warp so badly that it's like the entire world was made out of someone's dirty laundry and LSD. It's also a simulation game with a d-pad - I can admire what it's trying to do, but I'd rather play almost any other game on the system.

Small screens mask many issues.

I can't go back from my PSP screen, ever. That generation's aged so badly, but as a portable library, it's really underrated...

[Atariboy]

While not Game Boy Player worthy like 2D GBA games, I think it looks great on my backlit SP. Certainly less pixelated than Sega Rally Advance looks.