[Review] Big Red Racing

REVIEW # 00000000 00010001

I feel like drinking a gallon of terpentine and pissing on a bushfire!

Big Red Racing was a pleasant discovery in the mid-90’s. A friend og mine borrowed me this CD with tons of DOS games (actually I don’t think that compilation was SO legal…) and among FPS, early RPGs, action and platform games I found this racing game.

At first glance BRR is not a game you think you’ll remember in the future but, slowly, when you begin to race, kick the opponents, enjoy their stupid comments when you overtake them pushing them out of the track you start to have fun.

My heart says…

Not one of the best I’ve ever had, not one of the worst. It’s a game that delighted me for hours and hours, during those days when you have nothing to do, when outside is cloudy and you just want to spend some time playing something easy and not woth of an headache trying to understand the gameplay. It’s funny though, so thumb up!

Splash screen

The splash screen I think was created by someone who was very high, probably on LSD. The menu is very easy to manage but so hectic you don’t even understand what you’ doing. They say “do not judge the book by its cover” but in this case, the menu it’s a good introduction of the game ph(oo)losophy.

Graphics

Hmmm…the graphic is a bit poor. I mean it’s not a trilion dollars budget video game, but to be 1995 they could have done better: the same year were publisher BC Racers (slightly better), Screamer (better) and above all Grand Prix 2 (waaaaay better).

Narrative

Nothig to say. To see the reason of this read about it in th Scoring System page.

Gameplay

Big Red Racing is a very simple game. You will manage all the controls you have to use in 2.4 seconds: basically it’s just throttle, brake, turn left, turn right and boost. You can chose among a small car fleet (I said car, but in the game you can drive also hovercrafts, 4×4, helicopters and rafts) and you’ll have 5 opponents to race against in a 3 to 5 laps race.

Pros side: you have a lot of differnt race tracks, probably almost one per every single state in the world (plus moon and venus) and the races are not so long (they last less than 5 minutes). The race mode it’s like a tournament, but you don’t have tpo score points: the goal is to win like 2 out of 3 races or 3 out of 5 and so on. They’re like mini-championships you have to win to pass to the next stage.

Cons side: would have been better in my opinion to have also a REAL tournament options with races to choose, point system and stuff like that.  Maye it could have been more interesting.

Sound

This is the best part of the game, not for the soundtrack itself but for the sound effects duing the game, they are various and they changes from race to race so your opponents will gently suggest you to go to hell (or to go to f**k, it dipends on the level of your bon ton) in many ways, depending on the place you’re racing. Quite funny I have to say

Longevity

Lot of tracks and the possibility to explore a bit the landscape during the race means high longevity. You won’t race twice the same kind of race and even if the number of opponents is poor (but it’s a common in games like this) you will play again BRR a lot of times.

Final score 63/100

In the End, Big Red Racing is an honest and a no-frills game, an easy one that deserve to be played at least once.

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Year: 1996

Developer: Big Red Software

Publisher: Domark

Genre: Racing, 3D Racing

Game Mode: Single Player, Multiplayer

Original Platform: MS-DOS

From the same developers:

• Magicland Dizzy (1990)
• Steg the Stug (1992)

From the same publishers:

• Championship Manager 93/94 (1993)

Inspired to:

If you liked it you can also try:

• B.C. Racers (1995)
• Ignition (1997)

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