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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pure class, 11 Mar 2001
Ok, to start with, let me say that this was the game that made me buy my Dreamcast. Lets get it straight from the beginning, this game isn't supposed to be a quick arcade style thrill - check out Crazy Taxi for that. This game is a racing simulation, and an excellent one at that. It's aimed at those who want a bit of refinement in their driving sims, and appreciate playing a game where a car handles as it should. Whilst it's fair to say it's a game you'll need to work at, for beginners there are a host of driving aids to assist you in getting into the racing action without having to spend time practising each track. The driving aids cover things such as auto braking before corners, traction control to stop wheelspin, ABS and something to help you position your car correctly into a bend (I think... never used that one). Whilst some may want to use these driving aids all the time, I have to say that for me, it takes the fun out of playing - believe me, you'll want to turn them off ASAP and learn to drive on your own. Only then can you experience the thrill of braking too hard into a corner, getting the car into a powerslide, and then trying to give it a bit of throttle to straighten it up on the exit without spinning off. If you're happy to miss out on this kind of attention to detail in the car's handling by using the driving aids, then you may as well play MSR, because it's this realism which, for me, makes it such a great title. The graphics are top notch throughout. The cars are modelled perfectly, and the tracks are very detailed indeed. Sound is mixed, with some great sounding engine noises and lovely tyre screeches, but the music does let it down. It ranges from nice mellow guitar tracks through to horrendous rock with cheesy vocal. Luckily, the BGM music can be disabled very easily in race if required (some of the development team must have had the same view on the music!). F355 boasts internet gameplay, but the way it does it is a little odd. You connect to the net, start a game, and wait until you get some other racers to join. You then do the qualifying lap and the race all on your own. Once the race is complete, the laps from the other racers are downloaded to you DC and you're taken to a replay with all cars shown. You don't know who wins until after the replay is finished. This system works well, but not being able to race with other players online for real means that you can't cut up your opponents to get that extra position, or just to get revenge. Luckily, there is a split screen two player mode for this kind of unsportsmanlike racing, although I would have liked to have been able to race split screen with some AI cars as well, not just me and my victim... err opponent! If you can forgive the dodgy music tracks, and the slightly quirky online racing, I think you'd have a hard job to fault this title. I also own MSR, but to be honest, it doesn't even come close IMHO. MSR fails to give the kind of reward you should get for skilfull driving in terms of excitement and sense of achievment. Sure you may get a new track or car, but that to me isn't a reward, it's just a new track to work on so I can unlock the next and so on. F355 doesn't spend much time trying to make you work to unlock courses, nor does it bother trying to offer you ten thousand variants on a similar track - it doesn't need to. To become a real master on any track takes time and skill, but what you get from that for a reward is knowing how far you can push the car before it looses control, where you can leave the braking to the last minute and hope your sideways slide will get you around the corner and how best to overtake your opponents without putting yourself out of the race. By driving on the limit like this increases the excitement and the rush you get from the game, and it's that kind of payment I expect for my efforts, not another variant on a track or another car with arcade handling like the last. F355 is a thoroughly enjoyable simulation that has no equals. Buy this game now, and enjoy DC racing at it's very best.
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