Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2020
Original release: 1999 (N64 & PC)
At tail end of the 90s, Star Wars: Episode I was released in theatres and while I'm not here to talk about movies, I left the cinema disappointed. However, it had one redeeming part for me, the pod racing! Seeing Anakin Skywalker speed through canyons in a anti-gravity racing ship was exhilarating and, obviously, made me think of my beloved wipEout titles.
In conjunction with the movie, LucasArts released Star War Episode I: Racer for the Nintendo 64 and PC. The following year, an arcade version, partially based off this, was released, and finally in 2000 it made its way to the Dreamcast. I recall seeing the arcade pod racing unit at a mall and a cinema. Sadly, I never got to play it and time simply made me forget about it, until one day it turned up on recommended titles on the Xbox store.
I had no idea somebody had ported it to modern hardware and decided to finally give it a go! This HD remaster is a bare-bones port by Aspyr, who recently remastered the first Tomb Raider trilogy. Retaining the exact same textures, but boosting resolution and framerate, at least compared to the N64 version.
It moves from a 4:3 format over to 16:9 too, with all the HUD elements updated and adjusted. PC and Dreamcast players are probably more used to the better version back in the day, nevertheless this is a nice way to go back to the game, especially for N64 veterans.
Let's take our pod out in the canyon for a race!
The premise of the campaign is simple, you choose between a pod racer from the movie, including Anakin and a few exclusive to the game. During a race you can boost the engines, but this will cause them to overheat. Excessively bumping into the environment will also damage the engines. As such, failing to cool the engines down will make the whole pod blow up. Damage is accumulated to the point of the pod literally breaking up and respawning takes precious time away. You can, however, activate a maintenance button during racing to fix problems with the engines.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it's easy to grasp with a colour coded engine display on the HUD, as well as simple boost and repair buttons. In general, I found the competitors incredibly easy to speed past, the difficulty takes a lot of races before it increases slightly. There's also a lot of room on racetracks to manoeuvre around opponents and avoiding the walls on either side.
Controlling the pods feels surprisingly nimble with the right sensation of gliding just above the ground. There's a distinct responsive feel thanks to the high framerate and well balanced controls, something I wasn't expecting from a movie tie-in. Learning when to boost on long straights is key in getting ahead of the competitors. New for this HD version, in comparison with the N64 original, is that the pod will lean sideways into corners, instead of having to manually do so. It helps give the turning sensation a more natural sensation, but perhaps takes away some of the depth to the mechanics.
There's a large amount of racetracks for such a dated release, 25 in total and each with it's own theme and colour. Their length is considerable, but I'm guessing it's done deliberate to avoid many sharp turns. As such, some of the earlier racetracks become a little stale as they offer incredibly long curves with hardly any angle. It's all about speed, but perhaps a little too easy track designs and a lack of focus on slowing down, lacking a higher technical depth and skill set required to race.
Visually, it's a typical looking, late 90s, N64 and PC release. Sporting low resolution, but smoothed out, textures. Framerate issues are thankfully gone compared to the N64 version. There's a tell-tale, low polygon budget utilised, a typical N64 trait compared to the heavier polygon usage in PS1 titles of the same era. While the geometry is simple, it utilises the N64 strengths of large scale 3D environments and massive open surfaces.
It's a required graphics style, but it works well considering the long racetracks and speed. It's neat to see something follow this visual fashion from the era, versus the more typical PS1 graphic style. In short, you get the exact same the game offered back in the 90s, textures and all, although it reaches its limitations running it on a massive modern TV, compared to a smaller CRT where the lack of detail wasn't as obvious.
My immediate visual comparison would be like seeing a lower polygon version of wipEout Fusion, as the coloured lighting schemes and the wider racetracks bring that title to mind. However, I feel Episode I racer has the upper hand when it comes to less annoying controls and physics. It has nowhere near the amount of effects and finer detail though, clearly residing in the fifth console generation graphically.
For a fair comparison I booted up the N64 version, with an Expansion Pak installed no less, and it does a fair job at keeping a neat resolution and passable framerate for its time. It's nowhere near as smooth, residing somewhere in the 20-30 fps window. Clearly the added response and turning angle of the HD version is an improvement. That said, it's still a solid N64 racer, probably one of the better ones for the system as a whole. The textures look sharp, their simplicity hidden behind the lower resolution and scanlines, and it controls in a satisfying manner on the N64 pad.
At the end of the day I was pleasantly surprised by this racer and I'm glad I finally got to play it through a HD remaster. The pod racing was an excellent idea from the movie and making it into a racing game, amidst the popular anti-gravity craze at the time was a smart move.
My complaints would be that the racing feels a little simplistic and the HD remastering job done is incredibly bare-bones. Adding brand new textures would've been a neat visual step up. The competitor AI is very lacklustre too, with the difficulty staying low almost throughout the game. I've heard rumours that it was altered between the N64 release and the PC release back in the day, and thus this HD remaster is based off the latter. A shame as it's mostly about avoiding crashing rather than keeping up the other racers to win.
It's not something I'd heavily recommend from this era, but if you're into retrogaming and especially racers from this era, during the height of futuristic racing, check this one out! Veterans of the N64 release will love to return to a better optimised version!
