Air Race Championship
released on Apr 03, 1999
Reviews View More
cheating at the plane race by having a guy in my ear telling me what to do (fly faster)
First of all, gotta say thanks to @PZT for their "PS1 Japan-exclusives with low-language-barrier + fan translations" list. Wouldn't have known about this game without it.
AirRace is a pretty straightforward airplane race game for the most part, but the core concept of going as fast as you can through these vibrant aerial tracks is just so fun, and the game's simplicity only accentuates that quality. It's honestly close to being up there with some of my favorite racing games ever.
The main game mode, Grand Prix, is your standard racing game championship structure. There are three main tiers of competition, and you need to finish at least 3rd in all the tracks of each tier to continue. The first tier starts with 4 tracks, and the other two tracks are each introduced in the next individual tiers. There's also a 2 Player mode, Time Attack mode, and the Museum, which allows you to inspect the airplane models while learning about their technical specifications and such. This one is mostly in Japanese so I can't comment to much on it, haha.
I want to talk about the tracks first. I think the best thing about these tracks is the variety of settings. There's a track set in a Venice-esque city, then a night time modern skyscraper-filled urban center, and it only gets crazier from there. I love that the game isn't afraid to be ridiculous in the track design, although I do feel that they're only scratching the surface of what's possible. The tracks I mentioned above are the easier tracks, since the twists and turns they have aren't as technical as the other one, and I had the most fun with these tracks. But do note that the airplanes I use are the ones that focus on speed while sacrificing mobility, so you might have a different experience than I did, haha. I definitely had a lot of trouble with the Dinosaur track in particular, it has some of the most claustrophobic sections in the game and it can get really annoying to fly through them in a fast pace. The only track that I feel entirely negative about is the final one you unlock in the Grand Prix, because it's literally just a oval track. Boring!
The controls and physics of flying these old school airplanes are pretty solid, especially for a PS1 game. I particularly love how the Nitro mechanic works: you have 3 Nitro boosts for each race, and when you trigger them you have to make sure that you don't hit anything, otherwise it will end prematurely. It encourages thinking about when and where exactly is best to start the boost. It just feels so satisfying when you know what you're doing, and you're pulling off all the things you want to do; transitionining the plane to the other side at the right time so you can maintain the most optimal speed while turning, dodging close obstacles and enemy planes while boosting, and so on.
My main gripes are that sometimes you can stall for even just tilting your plane slightly up, and it's quite unpredictable, still not sure what exactly is triggering it. I also don't like how aggressive the enemy AI can be at the later stages of the game, since you can get hit by them and they will slow you down immensely. And I don't quite like how they portray your plane stats in-game; you need at least 2-3 points before you can actually feel the upgrade, and it just feel inefficient to me, I would rather have the upgrades be less often but more meaningful.
The game is also being held back by its technical aspects. The graphics are indeed colorful, but it can be hard to distinguish all the objects you see; sometimes the enemy planes can blend right in. The framerate is also alarming; I'm pretty sure it only hits 60 FPS for about 10% of the game. For the most part it feels like 15-30 FPS.
But honestly it's kinda easy for me to live with these flaws. The game is just so damn fun! I still like the graphics and art style overall, and the music is also pretty great. It's definitely Drum & Bass inspired, but also takes a lot from those Air Force marching band/ceremonial music.
I would definitely recommend this for anyone interested in this genre, it won't take too much of your time, and for what it is, I think it's a very good package. It's mostly in English, so much so that they could just release this in the West without many changes and everybody would be happy with what they got. Except for the airplane nerds interested in the Museum mode, I guess.
AirRace is a pretty straightforward airplane race game for the most part, but the core concept of going as fast as you can through these vibrant aerial tracks is just so fun, and the game's simplicity only accentuates that quality. It's honestly close to being up there with some of my favorite racing games ever.
The main game mode, Grand Prix, is your standard racing game championship structure. There are three main tiers of competition, and you need to finish at least 3rd in all the tracks of each tier to continue. The first tier starts with 4 tracks, and the other two tracks are each introduced in the next individual tiers. There's also a 2 Player mode, Time Attack mode, and the Museum, which allows you to inspect the airplane models while learning about their technical specifications and such. This one is mostly in Japanese so I can't comment to much on it, haha.
I want to talk about the tracks first. I think the best thing about these tracks is the variety of settings. There's a track set in a Venice-esque city, then a night time modern skyscraper-filled urban center, and it only gets crazier from there. I love that the game isn't afraid to be ridiculous in the track design, although I do feel that they're only scratching the surface of what's possible. The tracks I mentioned above are the easier tracks, since the twists and turns they have aren't as technical as the other one, and I had the most fun with these tracks. But do note that the airplanes I use are the ones that focus on speed while sacrificing mobility, so you might have a different experience than I did, haha. I definitely had a lot of trouble with the Dinosaur track in particular, it has some of the most claustrophobic sections in the game and it can get really annoying to fly through them in a fast pace. The only track that I feel entirely negative about is the final one you unlock in the Grand Prix, because it's literally just a oval track. Boring!
The controls and physics of flying these old school airplanes are pretty solid, especially for a PS1 game. I particularly love how the Nitro mechanic works: you have 3 Nitro boosts for each race, and when you trigger them you have to make sure that you don't hit anything, otherwise it will end prematurely. It encourages thinking about when and where exactly is best to start the boost. It just feels so satisfying when you know what you're doing, and you're pulling off all the things you want to do; transitionining the plane to the other side at the right time so you can maintain the most optimal speed while turning, dodging close obstacles and enemy planes while boosting, and so on.
My main gripes are that sometimes you can stall for even just tilting your plane slightly up, and it's quite unpredictable, still not sure what exactly is triggering it. I also don't like how aggressive the enemy AI can be at the later stages of the game, since you can get hit by them and they will slow you down immensely. And I don't quite like how they portray your plane stats in-game; you need at least 2-3 points before you can actually feel the upgrade, and it just feel inefficient to me, I would rather have the upgrades be less often but more meaningful.
The game is also being held back by its technical aspects. The graphics are indeed colorful, but it can be hard to distinguish all the objects you see; sometimes the enemy planes can blend right in. The framerate is also alarming; I'm pretty sure it only hits 60 FPS for about 10% of the game. For the most part it feels like 15-30 FPS.
But honestly it's kinda easy for me to live with these flaws. The game is just so damn fun! I still like the graphics and art style overall, and the music is also pretty great. It's definitely Drum & Bass inspired, but also takes a lot from those Air Force marching band/ceremonial music.
I would definitely recommend this for anyone interested in this genre, it won't take too much of your time, and for what it is, I think it's a very good package. It's mostly in English, so much so that they could just release this in the West without many changes and everybody would be happy with what they got. Except for the airplane nerds interested in the Museum mode, I guess.