Star Wars Episode I: Racer

First, it should be noted that I am not a big fan of racing games, but I am a fan of Star Wars. That does not influence my opinion here, though, because I genuinely really like this game. The sense of speed is excellent once you earn money to buy upgrades. It takes a few races to get decent control and pace, but as soon as you start pumping the stats, the pod becomes a fast, responsive machine, and it feels fantastic.

The tracks are good across the board, and two of them are fantastic: the snow world, and the Blade Runner-esque city where part of a lap drops you into zero gravity. Frame rates hold up well, even in high-res, with only a few barely noticeable dips here and there. There is plenty of speech and brief cut-scenes too, Watto, the pit-droid repairs, the junkyards, that flesh out the world between events. Most tracks run long, with laps averaging two to three minutes, which I love. I detest the ultra-short laps of F-Zero X, and thankfully only one track here is guilty of that.

So what is bad? The sound is average at best. Think better than Shadows of the Empire but not as good as Rogue Squadron. When are they going to learn not to stream direct samples? The effects are not as clear as Rogue Squadron’s, and while the audio is fine, it never rises to great.

Overall, this is a solid rental and a must-buy for Star Wars fans, or anyone who likes a racer. The speed, the upgrade hooks and those standout tracks more than make up for the merely okay sound. That is just my opinion, of course, but a podracer that wins over someone who does not even like racing games is doing something right.