Rollcage Playstation Publisher: Psygnosis Developer: Attention To Detail Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Hard Camera: Far Chase,Cockpit, Cockpit w/Rear View Mirror

Destructible Structures Result In Beautiful Explosions There Are Many Cool Weapons Like This Wormhole! Not An Actual Screenshot But Doesn't This Look Great To Drive Anywhere? TACH- O -METER Control: (4) Graphics: (4.5) Sound: (4.5) Replay Value: (4) Overall: (Not The Average) (4)

Psygnosis, creators of many average racers, have outdone themselves with this one. Rollcage is a futuristic, fast-paced, and adrenaline pumping racer. This does not just have Gran Turismo's Mazda or Aston Martin cars. This does not just have Monster Truck Madness' monster trucks. This does not just have Mario Kart 64's (for those who have played it) karts. No it does not have just one of these but it does have a mixture of every single one. The vehicles in Rollcage, for one, look very slick. As slick as the Aston Martins, or any car for that matter, in Gran Turismo. Not only do they look slick they also are compact with four huge wheels on the body of the vehicles. These wheels are bigger then the actual body so this enables the vehicles to drive on either side (very handy). Finally the vehicles are like Mario Kart 64 considering the fact that they are able to pick up weapons sprawled out on the tracks and use them against their opponent drivers.

Upon starting Rollcage you have the opportunity to chose between many options found in most of the racing games. There is a practice mode where you select a vehicle and race on the same track. While doing practicing you may change your vehicle at any time by just pressing start, selecting change driver, and the vehicle you are driving just changes into the one you have just selected. This is helpful because you have to find the right type of vehicle that you like. The vehicles differ in feel so much; finding the right vehicle might take a while. Learning how to drive the vehicles takes some time and some patience. After you practice a little bit with these new types of vehicles, have found the one that you feel comfortable with, and feel confident about your skills then it is time to move on to League Mode. Here you start out on a circuit with three tracks and each track has three laps. The first tracks you race are pretty easy but get progressively harder. Rollcage's track design is perfect! Each track has fully destructible buildings aligning the outer rim of the track at parts and objects in the middle of the road that can also be destroyed. You might be traveling way too fast and crash into a building causing it to come to the ground in a fiery explosion or just ram into a huge crate in the middle of the road. Luckily these monsters that I call vehicles are fully indestructible. If they were not indestructible most of us would have a hell of a time getting around these tracks once. Also on the roads are boost marks that if you drive over them cause your car to have a slight boost of speed. If there are a few in a row and you hit all of them then your vehicle will go so fast that you can see the heat on the your hood begin to glow. This reminds me of astronauts re-entering the earth's atmosphere getting ready for splash down and the incinerating heat that it produces as it gets faster and faster. This just goes to show how much detail was placed into this game. Another detail about the tracks in Rollcage is that you can race upside down. If you enter a tunnel and going fast enough you can ride up along the wall and just drive up it till you reach the top and you are now racing upside down. Most of the time the ceiling will have boosts on them or power-ups on them so it is very useful to learn how to drive upside-down. Some other modes include a Time Trial Mode and Multiplayer levels that I will get into later.

Speaking of power-ups this game has some interesting and unique power-ups. Just like in many games there are the missles and turbo boosts. Missles are probably the most abundant resource in Rollcage. There are many different types of missles like the homing missle, which targets the nearest building and destroys it which cause debris to get in the way. Or if you press UP and shoot the homing missle it will target the nearest enemy and hit him/her. The Leader Missle is another type of homing missle but it targets the vehicle that is in first place. Be sure not to shoot one of these if you are in first place because it will come back to haunt you. The final missle is the Driller Missle which "drills" through numerous targets until it hits something it cannot destroy. The turbo boosts, in my opinion, are the only useless power-up there is and the reason for this is because there is not a good place to use the boosts. There are no straightaways and if you use one you usually end up going to fast and crashing. This lead me to lose many races because I used it at the wrong time. Some of the more odd power-ups are the Wormhole, Ice Sheet, and Time Warp. The Wormhole will take a vehicle in front of you and place it behind your vehicle. If you use the Ice Sheet power-up it will cause enemys around you to lose 80% of their tire friction causing them to spin out easier. Finally the Time Warp is a power-up that, when used, causes all the opponents engines to turn off and their speed cut drastically.

The League Mode will keep you busy for a while considering it gets extremely difficult and frustrating. But the multiplayer in Rollcage will keep you busy for much longer. You and a friend can race either against each other on one of the many tracks or can go head to head in one of the 4 deathmatch levels. When you race together on a track it is basically the same as the League mode but with 2 people instead of 6. Power-ups, boosts, buildings, everything is the same. Now as for the deathmatch arenas (that you can only get by placing first in every race in each league, or just by entering the password MAXCHEAT) it is you and a friend pitted against each other in a fight to the death. Well not really considering the vehicles are indestructible. Each of you will rack up points depending on different things like falling off the arena or getting blasted by a rocket. Each time you hit you opponent you receive a point. The game does not end till a person reaches a certain point. This reminded me once again of Mario Kart 64 for those who have played that games multiplayer. The only flaw about this is that it is one on one. Maybe if Psygnosis provided a link cable and 4 players could play it might have been better, but that is just a minor flaw.

The developer ATD, Attention to Detail, did just that, paid a lot of attention to the detail in this game. The graphics are beautiful and the sound is just the same. The tracks, vehicles, buildings, explosions, and power-ups all look beautiful. In a snow level the tire treads will have snow all over them. On road levels the tread looks to be smooth instead of rough because there is no need for thick treads on a road. Levels that have a lot of fire and heat on them reflect on the tires again. The tires on the vehicles during these races look to have thick treads so that they do not break. If you ever get blasted into the sky but a homing missle from one of your opponents you will be screaming obscenities but if you ever happen to look out into the distance at the great looking landscape and backgrounds. As for frame-rates, they are perfect. The action is intense and never slows down a bit. Even if you had just fired a Driller Missle into ten building lined up, the explosion would be great but no slowdown what so ever. The tracks themselves are seamless and detailed with, as I mentioned above, fully destructible buildings, trees, bushes, crates, boxes, trains, everything. With explosions, vehicles, and great frame-rates this game better have some great music and sounds! Oh but it does! Explosions from power-ups sound like they are in your room, engines sound great, and a building coming to its knees sounds great!! Every track has a different soundtrack behind it. The music tracks add a lot to the overall feel.

Although the learning curve is very high and later missions get incredibly difficult this game is still a must- have for any Playstation owner that even hates racing. It is a lot like racing those RC Racers that we have all seen on the tv that drive on both sides. Only this game puts a little kick into that little 6V battery!!