'Rollcage' returns excitement to race games

Psygnosis

Playstation

Racing games are an insidious lot. Ever since "Pole Position" they've been fun while remaining strangely boring. The best have been slightly off the main circuit; "Rollcage" is such an aberration.

Unlike most racing games, "Rollcage" gives the player access to weapons and driving on the walls and ceiling. It's quite a cure for the repetitive nature of driving around a track. Depending on your definition of a racer, it may not even be such a disc. Weaponry, moving in three dimensions ... It might seem like a flight simulator to some. Just with tires and some asphalt.

That would also explain the reason the tracks were crafted with a great degree of creative leeway. The scenery changes track to track. From an icy pine tree-lined road that you slip off of and into a wrecked submarine to an active volcano where some of the roads are glowing magma, each of the 40 or so environments has unique problems to overcome and soft spots to help you along. These traps and tricks are beyond the average devices of mere hairpin turns and straight-aways, especially factoring in the massive differences in handling of different drivers you can choose.

There's also the design of the vehicles in the game. Your car can flip over and keep on driving on what was its undercarriage. And neither you nor anyone else is ever actually destroyed; the kids won't be turned evil by killing video game people. Or maybe they will be turned evil by seeing no effects to violence. Ah, you're old enough to play.

The game's wall crawling makes the controls very difficult and you're more likely to get blown off track than to do the same to the surrounding cars at first. Instead of ricocheting off an embankment, you fly up the wall and, often, into the air, flailing helplessly like a character in a Dalton Trumbo war novel. You don't normally have much recognition of the X, Y and Z planes while driving in real life, and strangely that's harder to deal with than shooting or being shot at. Must be the effect of the '80s.

The Rollcage Limited Edition also comes with a soundtrack CD. While a common practice in Japan, it's fairly innovative for this country. The music, which also plays in a less crisp way while you race, includes tracks from Fatboy Slim, amongst other video game-friendly musicians. The album is atmospheric, and it really plays best once you have positive racing experiences in the game while one of the songs is playing. It would be nice if it could stand on its own, but that would likely detract from the game.

- Ted Watts

04-09-99