Street Racing Syndicate (Game Boy Advance) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Street Racing Syndicate has hardly had a smooth journey to the GBA and has suffered significant delays over the years. The original was produced by Namco and released on all the major consoles and while it hardly set the press alight it still sells steadily even today. The GBA is no stranger to quality racing games of course and anything new on the shelves has to battle it out with classics such as V-Rally 3 and Kemco's Top Gear Rally, which was eventually taken under the wing of Nintendo as they were so impressed with the final product. That's not to say that SRS won't impress, it may even be the racer we've all been waiting for, although given our experience with extended development times it seems unlikely.

Gameplay

Before you even select your car in SRS you'll have to decide whether to enter the Street or Arcade Mode. The latter option is your quick fix solution with a variety of speed trials, checkpoint routes and standard races. This allows you to race in no time at all and is a simple case of picking a suitable car and event and then you're off. The Street Mode is a little more involved and the first thing you need to do here is actually buy a car although your limited funds mean that only the most basic of rides is available initially. To increase your purse you'll need to enter one of the many road races, which are taking place throughout the city and while some of these have fixed prize money, others allow you to wage bets against other drivers. This also increases your overall respect, which will also attract girls, impress these (in any one of the Respect Challenges) and you'll rise even higher in the street racing rankings. Once you've outgrown your car you can trade it in for a new, more powerful model and even add extras should you find yourself with a little cash left over. Should you tire of your AI opponents you can also indulge in the multiplayer but enjoyable as this is it also requires each player to have a copy of the game.

Controls

The control system takes some time to get used to initially mostly due to its sensitivity and you'll find it difficult to recover. This gets easier after some practice but you'll still have the rather random collision detection to deal with. This is not with the other cars as you'd expect but with the tracks so even though areas of roadway are 'blocked' with ten-foot high arrows you can still drive through them. I'm not sure if this makes the whole thing more challenging or frustrating but it's there anyway.

Graphics

While this is Raylight Studio's famed Blue Rose gaming engine it has begun to look a little dated in the light of the DS and had this been released around a year ago (when most sites previewed it) it probably would have been that bit more impressive. It's still pleasing given that the GBA was never supposed to be able to handle anything approaching 3D but with the short draw distance and the angular cars the whole thing looks a little dated. If that doesn't seem fair comparing this with another platformer then it's still not as good looking as the previously mentioned V-Rally 3 and Top Gear Rally both of which appeared on the GBA system some years ago. A good effort but just not good enough.

Sound

While there's a decent number of soundtracks here, they all appear to be on very short loops and are not nearly as clear as some other developers manage to get them. The car and collision sounds are all pretty generic so there's no real need to have this game at full volume.

Final comments

There were high hopes amongst racing fans when SRS was first announced on the GBA and had it been released a year to 18 months ago it would probably have scored much higher. The problem is we expect so much more from our visuals these days and just like when the NES was upgraded to the SNES, there's no going back. There's still much to celebrate here though. Not only are there many races, cars and challenges there's also a rather enjoyable multiplayer. It's just not enough though and if you were ever looking forward to SRS there's a good chance you've invested in a similar title in the 12 or so months delay. Not a bad little game but a little too late to really impress the GBA crowd.

Pro: Lots of Varied Gameplay, Decent Multiplayer.
Con: Temperamental Controls, Dated Visuals.
Final score: 5.4

Share on Twitter or Facebook

Comments