Metropolis Street Racer

Other products by Sega

Product Details

• ASIN: B000035YBQ
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,100 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

With Metropolis Street Racer, you can drive 40 licensed vehicles from 14 manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Renault, Rover, Mitsubishi, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Honda, and Ford. Two hundred different routes through Tokyo, London, and San Francisco offer 15 square miles of 3-D scenery that's been created from more than 40,000 photographs and 400 hours of video footage. Play in several game modes, including street race, timed run, head-to-head, model street race, model championship, challenge, and championship. Race solo, or against a friend via the split-screen mode, or see how you compare against online speedsters by uploading your performance in the Internet hot lap to get rated in a league. Road-handling dynamics and car physics are affected by changing weather conditions, including fog, snow, and rain. "Real World Time" allows the gamer to race at the correct time of day in each city. Metropolis Street Racer's authentic engine sounds were recorded from a wide range of cars; but, if motor purr isn't enough for you, you can listen to techno, dance, rock, jazz, or country music while you race through the city streets.

Amazon.com Preview

After having played a limited preview of Metropolis Street Racer, which took us in and around the streets of Tokyo, we find ourselves filled with the hope that the finished game will live up to the preview's rewarding experience.

Sega says that the final version of Metropolis Street Racer will contain 40 licensed sports cars that'll be free to twist and turn across more than 200 individual routes through London, San Francisco, and the aforementioned Tokyo. Major automotive firms--like Mercedes, Toyota, Renault, Rover, Mitsubishi, and Alfa Romeo--are on board, and racers will take their high-profile machines through such racing modes as Street Race, Timed Run, Championship, and a few others that'll be revealed only when the game ships. Of course, you'll be free to race solo or against a friend (four-player split-screen would have been nice, but it probably would have necessitated creating simplified, four-player world architecture at a great cost in time and resources). It's safe to expect that avid MSR players will be able to upload their fast-lap times onto a special posting area on SegaNet.

What will make or break this game in the hearts and minds of many, however, is the style of driving that MSR brings to the track. Instead of just hitting the accelerator and bounding off every obstacle in sight, MSR drivers are awarded kudos for their techniques. Negotiate a hard turn without scratching paint off the door, and you get five points. Vault the Tower Bridge without crushing your undercarriage, and you might get another five. Of course, this means that you must become good friends with the hand brake, because it's the only way to control the car through turns while maintaining enough speed to be competitive. Fun, yes; but nerve-racking, too.

Hopefully, all of that accelerator mashing and hand-brake jerking won't prevent you from seeing just how big the world of Metropolis Street Racer is. Sega says Bizarre Creations (the game's developer) has sculpted 15 square miles of terrain around the three cities. And, because there's limited fogging, you actually can see the far horizon from time to time. The game engine's impressive draw-in rate isn't immediately obvious within the gorgeously detailed city streets; but, get out into some of the more rural stretches, and you'll be blown away. --Todd Mowatt

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At last -- the Best Racer Ever, January 18, 2001

By	Bert Rinderle (L.A., CA United States) - See all my reviews

It's been a long time coming, and Metropolis Street Racer is definitely worth the wait. It combines new ideas with the best graphics on a console racing game, and manages to mix arcade-style action and realism in a way that's not been seen previously. In MSR, you race through 25 chapters, each with 10 races (over 250 tracks!) in any of three different cities: San Francisco, London, or Tokyo. The time of day in each city corresponds to the Dreamcast's inner clock -- so if you're playing the game in L.A. at 10 pm, it's 6 am when you race a London track -- very cool. Ambient sounds arise as the day begins as well: if you're racing in the dead of night you'll hear Big Ben chime the hours, but as day breaks (quite a sight to see -- the sky slowly becomes lighter gray, shadows appear...it's not SUDDENLY DAYLIGHT -- and wait'll you see the sun SET over the Golden Gate bridge -- breathtaking) you'll gradually hear traffic in the background, as well as sounds of construction, birds, etc. Put this together with the hyper-realistic graphics (each city is modeled after its real-life counterpart with painstaking accuracy, and there's no pop-up or slowdown whatsoever, even in multiplayer mode) and you have a racing environment unlike any other. Your car is even fitted with a radio that has three unique stations for each city, including news, weather, commercials, and music. At last -- not the same techno beats race after race (but you could use the car's custom CD player to do that if you wanted). MSR contains over 40 cars, from MGs to Mazdas to Porsches, and you can choose the color, transmission, license plate, and even window tint and rooftop style(topless, hard, or soft), and they look and sound incredible. You can't fiddle with engines or suspensions, true, but each car has its own Kudos rating, as well as top speed, acceleration, drive type, and so on. Kudos is another innovation: a unique point system that must be satisfied in order to progress through the chapters, unlocking ever more tracks and cars. Each of the 10 tracks in a chapter presents you with a challenge, which varies hugely from a standard multicar race to a time challenge to a game of How Many Cars Can You Pass Within a Time Limit? and many others. Outstanding variety -- it's not simply a battle for first place. You are able to customize the limits in order to attain the maximum Kudos as well: think you can beat the 40 second time limit for a lap? Change it to 35. Even 30. But be warned: fail to attain your own goal and you lose Kudos big time. MSR compels you to get better with a wonderful learning curve that you can actually adjust to your own ability. And you can re-race any race in any chapter at any time in order to get more Kudos, even using Jokers to double the number of Kudos you gain....but you can lose the same amount, so be cautious when you gamble! There's definitely a rush when you beat your lowered time limit, finally gaining enough Kudos to open another track! MSR handles great -- the handbrake works to perfection, enabling you to perform a Kudos-earning skid, but watch out for the walls -- hit em and you lose Kudos. As the game says, "It's not how fast you drive, it's how you drive fast." At the end of each race, you're awarded Skill and Style points, and penalized for each crash, and then further adjustments are made based on if you beat the challenge or not. Graphics-wise, control-wise, and gameplay-wise, MSR sets new standards for racing games. Add in a fantastic multiplayer mode (you can also up/download track times via the Internet) with several different options, and it's easy to see that this is the best racer to ever appear on any console. It appeals to casual and hardcore, sim nuts and arcade junkies. We DC owners sure have it good: Soul Calibur, Code Veronica, NFL2K1, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio...and now Metropolis Street Racer, an absolute classic that'll be praised and remembered fondly for a long time.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellence and Frustration, February 20, 2001

By	AceSpeed - See all my reviews

Before I say anything else, let me say this:
If you like racing games, get this game NOW.

Now on to the ramblings...
Graphics are great and move beautifully with no noticeable slowdown whatsoever, music is pretty good and sound effects are also top-notch. Control is, for the most part, very good; and as you well know, the most important aspect of a racing game is control.
HOWEVER...
This is the most unforgiving game I have ever played.
Let me first explain the concept:
There are 25 levels, each with 10 races. On each race you earn points (Kudos) based upon your performance (avg speed, lap times, etc), your "carefulness" (not hitting walls or other cars) and your power sliding. You can also set the bar higher and get more Kudos by challenging yourself to accomplish more (if on a race you were supposed to get 5th place, you can raise the bar and set it to 1st place).
Sounds pretty good right?
The problems are that (1) the other drivers could not care less about points and will gladly throw their cars at you costing you points; (2) most of the tracks were designed by someone of chaotic evil alignment (tough as heck - especially after you reach level 7); (3) this is a biggie - if you race the same race over and over trying to get more Kudos (which are not cumulative - if you earned 50 the first time and 48 the second time, you keep 48) you actually earn LESS KUDOS each time you race it!!! Even if you perform perfectly!

This is probably the most frustrating game I have ever played. And because of this, it is also one of the most rewarding.

So, in short, get the game... It is excellent.
BUT, make sure you have spare controllers... And that you aim at something other than the TV when you toss them.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good game but..., January 17, 2001

By	SL (RI) - See all my reviews

Note again that MSR has great graphics. However, in some areas in the several tracks, the lighting is so dim I cannot see turns clearly. The game frame rate seems just a bit slow so I don't feel adrenalized driving a car at 80-100 mph in the city. Also, when you bump into barriers, the car just stops, it won't bounce back or spin the car around. Not that I've ever ran into walls in real life, but, MSR just doesn't seem to have that realism I'd imagine. Alright, so, I've been negative about this game. But, I am glad to have purchased it. I've played many many racing games, both on PlayStation and Dreamcast (big names like GranTurismo 1&2, Tokyo Extreme Racer 2, Test Drive Lemans, etc . MSR is one of the most interesting as well as enjoyable racing games to play. There's something about racing in the city that's different from a racing on a circuit track. There are more surprises and possibilities to do well or screw-up in the streets. MSR, I'm sure you've heard, is not about how fast you drive, it's about how you drive fast. You need precision and lots of practice to win kudos but with the game's great controls you should be able to drive quite well after a few run. The game can keep you addicted as you try to unlock new tracks and cars. The game play is simple and tight. The driving is solid. The graphics are great. Only thing is there is a longer learning curve than most racing games trying to get good at this game.