Oh, man... was the writing all over the wall about this one
prophetic or what? You know that when Midway failed to
produce screenshots and preview copies of PSX "San
Francisco Rush" for the press, and then dumps it into
retail without even an annoying press-release heralding the
arrival, the possibility of this game being the videogame
equivalent of Shaquille O'Neal's "Steel" is higher than the
chance of Indiana Representative Dan Burton blowing his top
with more Clinton accusations. Naturally I had to buy this
turd to experience for myself just how butchered a
conversion this game is (I'm sick that way, anticipating
bad games with an equal degree of glee as I do the good
one's), and to compare it to the OK N64 game that was
released last year. After playing PSX "Rush", all I have
to say is "Thank God for Electronics Boutique's 10-day
return-policy".
GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: C-
Where to start? Since the PSX lacks the CPU power to
implement the gravity-defying jumps and crashes that
characterized the arcade and N64 versions, the cars in
"Rush" not only hug the road but stay there, with only the
rare jump and skid around a tough corner (forget about
using the brakes for sliding and drifting!). The essence
of "Rush" gameplay is lost, and what you're left with is an
ugly "Ridge Racer" clone with four tracks (three from the
arcade/N64, and a PSX-exclusive track that is kinda cool in
its design). The loading times are UNBEARABLE (can you say
35-40 seconds before starting a race, and 10-15 seconds
when choosing options), and God forbid that you want to
restart a race halfway through a race that you know is a
lost cause; another HUGE loading awaits around every option
chosen by the players, and that is a sharp contrast to the
N64 "Rush" instant-access (the only real benefit of the
cart format). Controlling the cars (depending on the
chosen difficulty level, which ranges from 'Easy' to
'Extreme') is a chore with the digital control, but it's
nightmarish with the analog controller, which rivals the
too-loose feel of "Colony Wars" and early analog-compatible
PSX titles in its lack of polish. Shame that playing the
game is such an unexciting chore, because it packs more
gameplay options than the N64 version: Two-Player in
split-screen (why does one window has more view than the
other one??!!!), Link, cones on the road as mines, Instant
Death (hit anything and the race is over), a cool
"Speed"-type mode where the car explodes if the speed drops
bellow a certain point, etc. ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT PSX
"RUSH"? It is a bare-minimum fun racing game, with tracks
that can be raced backwards and mirrored, and are quite
large and based on real San Francisco locations. Uhhh, and
it will be on discount bins in the next few weeks if there
is justice in this world! :-P
GRAPHICS / VISUALS: C
From the machine that brought us "Rage Racer" and "Gran
Turismo"? From the graphical-powerhouse that can give us
"Tekken 3" and "Crash Bandicoot 2"? I'm sorry, but Climax
(the team of developers Midway hired to port "Rush" to the
Sony wunderkid) was forced by deadlines and pushy
management to deliver what looks like a 65% complete
version of the game, with the worst-looking fog effects
this side of "Black Dawn" used to mask the pop-up of
approaching scenery (which, by the way, is still very
visible throughout the game). Every building and vehicle
is pixelated badly, and the low-res at which the game is
obviously running makes the consistent frame-rate (20-24
per second) go unnoticed. Alas, not even the menu screens
and FMV intro (a cool "speeded up" drive through the
real-life San Francisco locations featured in the game)
look that impressive, or come across as someone's
(anyone's) baby! Climax is off the hook in my book (hey,
I'd like to see you deliver an arcade-exact "Rush" on an
underpowered PSX chip in less than a year), but Midway
rightfully deserves to be shot for yet another atrocity in
their rather long-list of crimes against gamedom ("War
Gods", "Mace: The Dark Ages", yoour-favorite-MK-game-here,
etc.). If you didn't know any better you could be
forgiven for thinking that they just dumped unused Saturn
code into a Yarouze, shook it (but did not stir it! :-P),
and then burned the graphic-libraries into the gold Beta.
MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: B-
The music on N64 "Rush" could the worst racing music ever
composed in MIDI (one of the music tracks, 'Rave Rush',
sounds like a bunch of cats tied together that are being
simultaneously raped and skull-crushed to death against a
keyboard...I kid you not!), so the slightly-better generic
rock music on PSX "Rush" is heavenly when comparisons arise
with the cart. But on its own the tunes are really weak,
and are just barely-tolerable racing background material
(sorry, no music while the LONG laoding process takes
place). The sound effects are slightly better, with every
bump against another racing heap of metal and all the
booming explosions shaking up the speakers of my humble 27'
Sony Trinitron XBR. That should tell you the benefit of
having a dedicated sound-chip inside your hardware, even
with deadline-imposed restrictions on your creation process
(are you listening Nintendo?).
OVERALL: C
The memorable moment that I will remember the PSX version
of "San Francisco Rush" for is when, after crashing and
pressing the 'Abort' button (gosh, don't let the Pro-Life
movement get a hold of that one!), I was sent FLYING
through a huge chunk of the track (like a runner in
Saturn's "Sonic R" after hitting the speed spot) and wound
up in a better position that I would have enjoyed if I
hand't crashed in the first place... what a cop-out of
rushed (no pun, I swear!) AI programming routines. Rent it
for a laugh or two, and then buy yourself the N64 version
when (or if) you ever feel the need for the real deal in
your living-room. Midway bought the rights to one of the
biggest arcade names of the past few years, and that is
exactly what got released for the PSX this past April: a
name (with an unrelated game attached to it).
