In this review, we try to walk on the ceiling in the GameCube game Auto Modellista. We find out how well this racing game plays.
This game was released in 2002 and is a standalone game.
There isn’t really a storyline in this game to speak of. There’s a couple of modes of play. The main mode is Garage Life. This is where you can unlock various items in the game itself. Arcade, meanwhile, allows you to race any race (one special race is available only in arcade mode where every car is turned into an RC car. You can find yourself speeding at a monstrous 15MPH in this mode while you are at it!).
Back in Garage Life, you can pick from a handful of cars. Initial specs are critical to getting the most out of your car. While tuning can improve your odds, the initial specs is where it’s at to building a much more promising car. There are a number of types of cars from a host of makes and manufacturers. Keep in mind that cars also have a couple of different drive trains. These drive trains are FWD (Forward Wheel Drive), RWD (Rear-Wheel Drive), and 4WD (Four Wheel Drive). The drive train can have an impact in your cars performance ranging from handling to acceleration. Ultimately, you need to pick a car suited to your style.
After that, you can pick from three different garage styles. This is simply just for looks more than anything else, but since you’ll probably spend some time here, you may as well pick something that you like.
You’ll also name not only your garage, but be able to customize your plate as well. This sounds exciting at first, but there is a big caveat to this: not every normal English character exists. Even in some menus and messages, the character limitations are there as well. With no “X” or “B”, for instance, the game tries to compensate by throwing in other characters like an end bracket or even a number or a period to replace that character. Even when playing Atari games, I don’t recall running into a limitation like this. It ultimately makes the game harder to read and seems highly unnecessary even if it’s an aesthetic the developers were shooting for.
From here, you can tune your car. There are two ways to tune your car: east tune and tune. Easy tune will look at what parts you have available and tune to a specific track you intend on racing in. The practical advantage here is that if you aren’t really much of a gearhead, you can let the game pick for you and save a pile of time scratching your head or avoiding making bad mistakes. The downside is that you don’t really get to more finely tune your car specifically to your tastes. You can definitely win the game using easy tune, but you may know less about the tuning process after.
Tune, meanwhile, will allow you to pick and choose from a variety of parts include tires, engine, turbine, computer, weight reduction, and a host of other things. I found that it’s possible to squeeze an additional 100HP in some instances going from a normally tuned car to the manually tuned car. So, it’s more than possible to squeeze out some extra performance if you sit down and spend the time to get to fiddling with specifics. The only thing is that this can be quite time consuming – especially if you simply want to get to the racing part of the game. After all, different tracks have different challenges to overcome.
When you are done tuning the car, you can test it out on a track. Especially when you are new to the game, test driving it on a specific track is highly recommended at least once. Not only will you get a better feel for how your car responds, but also how the game physics and handling work. You’ll also be able to perfect your handling of the track itself in the process.
There are a number of tracks in this game. Most have two different modes of play. In circuit mode, a number of them will allow you to race in a reversed direction. One can change weather conditions. The hill challenges will allow you to try either going downhill or uphill. In addition to this, there is even one track that allows you to race on a dirt track. So, if you think you can easily find a one-size-fits-all tuning solution to your car, you’ll likely be disappointed. The closest you’ll come is a “normal” easy-tune setting and that is only really useful at the end of the game.
When you feel you have gotten enough practice and gotten familiar wit the various settings, you can jump right into the races. In all, there are seven levels to compete in. A number of the earlier levels are just one race events. These pit you against easier opponents and is very straight forward. If you complete more than half of the races successfully, you’ll unlock the next level.
While that sounds like a shorter path to victory, keep in mind that you also unlock different things as you go along. For every win, you can unlock parts, “secret” cars (re: locked), new “mail”, and items to decorate your garage. Of course, the first two are the most useful in the game in terms of helping you achieve victory in later levels. So, it’s probably in your best interest to win every event to unlock the most things. Some items you unlock are apparently random.
As you get to higher levels, you’ll probably get to the point where the opposition seems overwhelming. This is probably because the base specs of your car doesn’t permit you to keep up with your opponents. If this starts to happen, your best option is probably to park your car. After winning a number of races, you should have been able to unlock higher performing cars. So, park your car (saving it) and try picking out another normal car.
The base specs are on a three point radar-like graphic. You have high speed, handling, and acceleration show up. The further up the chart you go for any spec, the higher the performance for each. I found myself parking two different cars on my way to victory (ultimately using a GTO to get those last victories in the process).
Also, as you get to the higher levels, the single races will drop out and you’ll be left with championship style race events. At first, it’s a two race series. Some simply have you race the same track, but with different modes. A few will get you to race similar tracks. This is where tuning starts becoming a thinking game regardless of easy tune or normal tune. If you have a series where you are racing up a really large hill, what tune specs will allow you to be successful going both up hill and down hill? In the middle of a series, you can only tune a couple of parts, so tuning to both your strengths and what seems to be good for both races is going to be critical.
As you reach towards the end of the game, you’ll find a 4 race series. The final level takes you on a large tour of a majority of the tracks in the entire game.
For these series, you’ll get championship points after each race. The higher you place, the more points you get. You can earn up to 10 points for a first place finish. For places below first, the points will vary depending on how many opponents you have in the series. Sometimes, you’ll face three other opponents. Other times, you’ll face 5 opponents. The difference in racers can even impact how many points second place earns. Still, finish the last race with the most points and you’ll win the series.
Some sources say that this game is an arcade style racing game. You’d never know it when you enter a race. A lot of arcade style racing has you simply going left on left turns and right on right turns. The only real strategy is to keep holding down the accelerator for as long as humanly possible. This game plays much more closely to a simulator style racing game. As such, handling works much differently.
A well known example of a simulation racing game is Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. Instead of just oversteering all the time, you are strategizing on the speed you enter a turn, how far out from the inside you enter the turn, how close you get to the apex in the middle of the turn, how much speed is applied throughout the turn, and your exit speed upon exit of that turn. There are obviously exceptions and differences depending on the turn, but that is the general gist of a simple turn.
So, for example, if you are approaching a turn, you’ll probably want to do the obvious thing of hitting the breaks on approach if its a sharp turn. You’ll also want to be near the outside wall at the same time. As you enter the turn, try and steer your car to the inside wall (apex). As you get close to the end of the turn, you’ll want to accelerate as much as possible, gradually shifting back to the outer wall again. This rough technique will allow you to not only leave the least amount of stress on your tires as you turn, but also allow you to travel quickly, utilizing the full width of the road in the process. This, of course, is a difficult thing to master, but the more efficiently you can handle those turns, the better your chances of success in these games in general.
In this game, you’ll have to worry about drifting and sliding probably more than normal. A little bit of sliding is fine (though you might lose speed in the process). However, too much sliding will likely cause you to spin out. So, you’ll want to pay attention to the angle of your car because there is going to be a point of no return. If you start spinning out of control, you can slam on your breaks to stop the spinning. You’ll either lose your lead or lose ground in the process, but it beats suffering from a full spinout. This is especially so because I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to reverse in the game. This opens up the possibility of getting stuck on a barrier (at least, during my playthrough anyway).
Opponent difficulty definitely has range. For the most part, they aren’t too bad (though there is some elastic banding effects going on in the game up to the last lap). There are a couple of races where they can be quite ruthless (first two races of the second to last level come to mind). Still, for the most part, the challenge is simply mastering your racing skills and getting a good tuning of your car to maximize your chances of success.
For me, this game is far from a flawless game. First, the character set limitation is probably the first thing that annoyed me. I don’t recall having this much of a challenge just inserting my own name into a game. Not only are the character sets limited, but just picking letters are a pain as well. You have to spin a series of three letter dials to find the characters you need. To make matters worse, the letters aren’t necessarily in alphabetical order either. So, not only did you have to dig deep into the character selection just to get a normal name punched out, but you also ran the risk of having a character that is missing in the game.
The messages and some headings (stupidly, not all) also suffer from these character limitations. Examples include “Back” becoming “)ack”, “Poster” becoming “Po5ter”, and “max” becoming “ma.” (to name a few). I don’t understand the need to find hacks for basic spelling at all – especially for a GameCube game. I understand that, for specific scenarios (like secret passwords or cryptic messaging where difficulty to read is the point), but for basics, it’s senseless to me.
Another flaw in the game is definitely handling. Having played four Gran Turismo games, I know all about simulation style racing games. I know the point of simulation style games. In this game, the steering is a bit off for me. Examples include having to constantly correct on straightaways. When I let go of the control stick, I generally think that the steering wheel is pointing the car straight. In this game, you are almost always steering slightly left or right. Also, the way sliding works just seems slightly off. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s off for some reason to me.
A third problem is the games length. Unless you spend all day meticulously tuning your car for every individual race and trying out different cars to squeeze out a bit of extra performance, this is a really short game. With 7 levels, it could very well have lasted a very long time. Some levels only feature 5 single race events. In one level, there is only one four race event. Other levels have a mixture of length between these two for the most part.
To further compound the fact that this is a shorter game, a lot of events feature races that are only two laps long. Yes, a simple square or circle and you are racing for a whopping two laps. Each lap can go for about a minute (sometimes, you can even beat a minute on some courses). In all, you could really beat this game over the course of a weekend if you pushed it. All this also can put into question whether or not it was worth meticulously tuning your car in the first place, really. Additionally, is it worth replaying races for a chance to win that extra poster for your garage? Probably not unless you are a die hard fan of the game who wants to get absolutely everything you can unlock.
The other thing is that features are generally stripped down for the most part. There isn’t even a monetary system. Besides the RC mode being available for a track, there really isn’t much to speak of in terms of features in races.
On the plus side, this game does represent a chance for GameCube players to experience what a simulation racer is like. After all, Gran Turismo is a Playstation exclusive franchise. With plenty of arcade style games available for the console like Mario Kart: Double Dash and Burnout, this game represents an interesting diversion from the usual suspects of racing for the system.
Additionally, the tracks are well designed. Most are fictional courses, but there is at least one track based on real life: the Suzuka International Racing Course. Each course has unique characteristics that can push players to readjust their strategies. A few courses can offer the advantage of bouncing off of a wall or two, but others, just touching walls will easily cause you to lose time. So, there is a lot of trial and error before mastery sets in.
Generally speaking, this game represents an interesting attempt to get simulation racing to platforms other than Playstation platforms. Unfortunately, flaws such as the shorter length of the game, limited character set, and a somewhat off steering system does hold this game back. Additionally, the game is a bit stripped down feature-wise as far as money is concerned. As for races, there are games that are better than what I see here. The courses are well designed and the difficulty curve of the opponents is decent. Still, this game does have its shortcomings.
Graphics is arguably where this game shines the most. While a lot of games are aiming for realism and even more realism, this game takes a different style. Instead, this game goes for a cell shaded cartoon style of racing. The road can be a range of colours like cyan, purple and a few other colours in the process. The lines on the road, in the process, can make you think you are seeing neon paint. In addition, the city buildings and country roads have their own aesthetic. This over top of the countless cars featured in the game where there is that sense of realism, but placed in a cell shaded context to offer that cartoon style on top of it all. This graphical style is also found in the various special effects thrown in. Ultimately, this game can be quite the visual treat as it works quite well. A great effort in the end.
Audio is a bit more of a mixed bag. Some people like it, others apparently hate it. I’m personally more positive on this game. The music can range from a soft jazz style to music featuring loads of piano all the way down to heavier instrumental rock. Considering the length of this game, the amount of music found in this game is actually pretty impressive. My personal favourite is definitely the licensed music “Ing – Springfield Avenue”. Having that track play during a race with this visual style just works perfectly. It’s the games exclamation mark that “hey, we’re different and that’s OK!” The engine sounds and other music works well and gets a thumbs up from me.
Overall, this is one of those games that ventures out into uncharted territory. It takes the more realistic style of simulation racing and wraps it into a cartoon style game complete with cell shading settings and models. Unfortunately, the limited character set, shorter length, and slightly off controls ends up holding this game back. Additionally, there are areas where features are weak. The track design is quite decent and the opponent difficulty curve is actually very well realized. Graphics are great and audio is quite decent as well. So, it’s a decent game, but I can’t help but wonder if it could have been much better with a little bit more polish to fix lingering gameplay issues.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Beat the game.
General gameplay: 17/25
Replay value: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 3/5
Overall rating: 70%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
