San Francisco Rush Reivew

For Nintendo 64

Rating: Average
 San Francisco Rush will not be remembered by me as the 
great racing game I thought it would be; instead, it is just 
another name on the long list of Nintendo 64 games that 
failed to live up to the hype.  First of all, Midway swore 
that the N64 version of SF Rush would have graphics 
identical to the arcade version's, but this is simply not 
true.  The overall look of the N64 version just isn't as good
as the arcade version, and the game also suffers from the 
infamous N64 fog effect.  Also, the sound is absolutely 
horrible.  From the annoying whisper of "Rush" at the main 
menu, to the grating squealing of the tires whenever you 
turn, to that God-awful music, the sound in this game just 
plain sucks.  However, none of these flaws are what 
ultimately makes SF Rush a disappointing game.  I could have
lived with the lower graphical quality and the music turned 
off at the options screen.  What I can't live with is this 
sickenly unbalanced gameplay.  The car selection isn't the 
"every car has its own unique strengths and weaknesses" 
affair that it should be.  Instead, the cars' handling 
abilities get worse as their speed gets better, which creates
a horribly unbalanced game.  You really have to play as the 
fastest car to have any prayer of winning, but the fastest
car conrols horribly and so you'll just be spinning around
the tracks endlessly.  There is no middle ground; it's 
either speed or handling.  You can't have both.  The gameplay
is also unbalanced in several other ways. One of the most 
annoying ways is car explosions that happen whenever you 
get into a bad crash.  After an explosion, your car is 
restarted near where the crash happened.  What makes this 
feature so stupid is that sometimes you'll go crashing into 
a wall head-on and there's no explosion when there should be,
and sometimes you'll just barely touch a barrier and bam, 
you're dead.  The same can be said for making the turns 
successfully.  How well you're actually racing has little to
do with whether you're making it through the turns without 
skidding all over the place.  Midway added plenty of new cars
and tracks to the N64 version of the game, as well as a 
season mode, but it's just not enough to make me want to 
play the game.  My recommendation is that you leave San 
Francisco Rush on the shelf.

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