World Rally Fever: Born on the Road

I wanted to love this game, I really did. These lovely 90s pseudo 3D graphics are really colorful and gorgeous. The 3D engine the game uses is very unique, especially on the PC and on modern systems it runs flawlessly of course. But unfortunately this game is borderline unplayable. The controls are the wonkiest, I have ever experienced in a racing game. Your kart (or car) shifts uncontrollably from left to right and drifting is a real challenge. Additionally the developers constantly throw random things at you, like bridge pillars in the middle of the street, barrels, traffic, etc. You barely have any space to navigate these obstacles. You are being constantly punished in this game and I get the feeling that this game actually doesn't want me to play it. Great graphics, though.

The visuals in this game are fantastic. The art is inspired by Japanese arcade games and the execution is flawless. It's something unique when it comes to DOS games. The gameplay is good, but with a few issues. The driving isn't exactly physics-based, so the car's behavior isn't 100% intuitive. The driving works well most of the time, though, and with some effort you'll be sliding around corners in a satisfying manner. There are some parts of some tracks that don't work right, though, and the car kind of gets pulled off the track, which can be pretty frustrating. Some tracks are very full of hazards, and when you make a mistake, you lose considerable time, which adds to the frustration factor. But overall, the game is good, and I think it should be played by anyone who likes the “pseudo-3D” visuals of old arcade games.

Unfortunately despite the good looks (mainly on screens though) this game is a total disappointment. I understand that the game was released in 1996 so can't have huge expectations but this title fails in almost every aspect. The main problem is the driving model. The only way I can describe is it feels like the road was a cardboard moving beneath your car and the car was pinned on a needle above that cardboard. You can influence the speed of the road "passing below" your car and you can move the needle round to turn right and left. In practice in means that when you're driving fast taking turns is incredibly snappy and rapid (which can be fun once you learn it) while when you're moving slowly you barely turn. This is important as your cart - in contrary to AI - has no acceleration. This is bad by itself however when you find yourself out of the road (which you'll often do) coming back on it takes ages (especially if you get off road on turning section). This is incredibly frustrating. Apart from that AI always get past the finish line in exactly same order as they start. This makes the race dull and makes winning the tournaments difficult. There are always four races so you need to win 3 of them and have to finish as 3rd or higher in the remaining one. There is huge screen tearing which makes difficult to tell what in front of you is actually a road; as you have no acceleration you practically always start as the last and the collision physics is awful. You also need to jump over different obstacles but the cardboard-needle mechanics makes jumping extremely unreliable. I hoped this game will be a nice arcade racing experience to me unfortunately I ended up utterly frustrated with it. I've seen some people compared it in their comments to Mario Kart - it's nothing like that. I wouldn't recommend in to anyone. If you haven't played and liked that game back in the day you shouldn't try it. If you did - don't try it either. It's better to keep the good memories. I do believe this game cold have it's fans in 1996 but it's one of those cases which got old very badly.

The graphics are gorgeous and the music is good. The whole aestetich perfectly encapsulates late '80s, early '90s arcade racers, except there's actually a difficulty adjustment (which is good). It would be a great game, if not for the controls. The turns are clunky and can be described only as "sticky", the throttle is only semi responsive and the jumping has a weird timing to it. There's also the matter of pick ups - or rather lack of thereof. It hasn't bothered me that much, but when you excpect some Mario Kart-eque shenanigans then be warned - pick ups are few and far between (and even when some spawn, picking them requires herculean effort with previously mentioned control issues). It's a shame really - this game was very close to greatness with it's nostalgic feel.

when this came out, it was ahead of it's times, it looks like OUTRUN to me, today, it is just a mess and gave me motion sickness, buy it if u find it cheap for nostalgia, but don't exepect any fun here...