Head to Head Review: Spirit Of Speed 1937 vs Golden Age Of Racing

Game: Spirit of Speed 1937
Console: Sega Dreamcast
Developer: Broadsword Interactive
Release Date: 31st July 2000

Published by our friends at LJN who are renowned for their terrible NES games, and generally considered the worst Dreamcast game in existence, Spirit Of Speed 1937 makes a lot of key mistakes as both a racing game and as a video game in general. The concept is simple; a racing game featuring old cars on old circuits for that nostalgic feeling of the formative years of formula one style motorsport. With 12 cars and 9 circuits, the game is more limited than a lot of other racers but that could have been excused with better overall execution of the game.

There's 3 modes to choose from; Single Race, Championship and Scenario, with no unlockables or rewards for winning any of them. The first two modes are pretty self explanatory, and scenario mode is pretty much single race with a set car, on a set track with a target finishing position. There's no story behind the scenario races, and most of them are fairly easy to complete.

None of the cars in the game control particularly well, the brakes hardly slow them down, getting going is far jerky and unrealistic and hitting anything results in the car spinning off wildly. The game manual says "the handling on these cars is primitive" but I doubt they made an actual attempt to recreate the old-style handling so much as just neglecting to actually make the cars control decently. Any corner that's more than a slight bend requires braking from as far away as you can see it, which isn't something the AI has to contend with. They seem to float around the corners just fine at speeds which won't allow the player to do so. In general however, the AI does stupid things when out of sight of the player. I've come upon rivals blindly driving into the advertising boards at the side, and trying to climb the steep sides of other race tracks.

As you race, there are gauges for petrol, oil and your tyre wear. All of these go down incredibly quickly and make pit stops a necessity on even 6 lap races. To pit stop you're required to drive into a small rectangle in the pit lane which is difficult with the braking as it is, in game. Graphically the game isn't much to look at, and easily could have been on the N64 or original Playstation. The scenery flickers incessantly and is in very low quality, the backgrounds look to be made out of cardboard and the cars look very basic also. There's a little jazz music from the period in the menus, but in races there's only the sound of the car engines and whatever collisions you may have.

Rating: 44/100
Grade: E

Game: Golden Age Of Racing
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Midas Interactive
Release Date: 2nd September 2005

If you thought that there was a lot wrong with Spirit Of Speed, then Golden Age Of Racing will show you how good it really is. Based on the same sort of retro racing concept but in the 1960s GP era this time, this game features 5 entirely fictional cars to race around 5 entirely fictional circuits. I can understand the developer not wanting to spend money on licensing real world cars and locations, but it doesn't seem to have been spent anywhere else either.

Just like Spirit Of Speed there's 3 modes to choose from, although this time they're Championship, Race and Challenge. Championship and Race modes play similarly to their counterparts in Spirit of Speed, but Challenge is more of a Time Trial mode. It gives the player a target time to beat and once that has been achieved, the player is rewarded with a plaque in the trophy room. The times are incredibly easy and can be achieved even when you've crashed twice or less on a lap.

Controlwise this is probably the worst racing game I've ever played; you're not allowed to brake and turn at the same time, and turning at any speed below about 20 miles an hour will cause the car to fly off the track. Colliding with other cars causes whoever gets caught on top (the cars tend to slide under one another) to fly off at an unrealistic speed and angle, usually flipping over as they go. Any circuit with sharp turns or a turn following a straight are unenjoyable due to the driving controls.

Graphically, Golden Age Of Racing looks a lot better than Spirit of Speed. Although it's still not the best it can be there's marked improvement, it's just a shame that the racing is so ridiculously unplayable. The frame rate drops in places in the game, and even the menu screen shows video of the AI struggling with driving on the circuits. This is a real mess of a driving game which deserves as little time to be spent on it as possible.

Rating: 30/100
Grade: E