💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › games › REVIEWS › vette.rev captured on 2020-10-31 at 23:30:16.
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VETTE! Imagine a computer road-racing game that doesn't confine you to a predetermined route. Instead, you're given a hefty chunk of real city (San Francisco), your choice of four autos and four competitors, more landmarks than you'd find packed onto a flight simulator scenery disk, and modem support (so you can race with your friends over the phone). In a nutshell, Spectrum HoloByte's VETTE! supplies all this, as well as more features than any other racing game. This review is based on the IBM-PC version of the game. The flight simulator analogy is particularly appropriate, because VETTE! owes much to such programs. Most of the roadway graphics (vehicles, buildings, cyclists, pedestrians) are of the 3-D solid-fill polygon variety, common to programs such as F-19 and Microsoft's FLIGHT SIMULATOR. The background and dashboard are traditional bit-mapped graphics, and the mix of two graphic styles works well. For example, as you travel north along the Great Highway, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, bit-mapped, far in the background. When you drive onto the bridge, though, it becomes an intricate, articulated 3-D polygon structure. As the game begins, you're given a choice of four models of the Corvette, each more powerful than the last, and each with different performance and equipment specifications. They are: 1989 Stock Model, 1989 ZRI "King of the Hill," 1989 Callaway Sledgehammer, and 1989 Callaway "Twin Turbo." To a certain extent, you can override the equipment specs and add your own preferences (cruise control, automatic transmission, etc.), but non-standard equipment changes the performance. There's a brief dynamometer sequence allowing you to check out several specs of each car before making your decision. Then you choose a gameplay level: trainee, rookie, or pro. As a trainee, you can break all the laws you want, sustain infinite damage, and take advantage of other amenities. Pros must contend with police, realistic damage, and traction. Rookies, as you might guess, fall somewhere in between. You then choose your opponent auto; again, all four (Lamborghini Countach, Porsche 928S 4, Ferrari Testarossa, and Ferrari F40) have different performance specs. (The rotating, configurable wireframe display of each opponent car is outstanding.) The computer always drives legally and perfectly. Finally, you choose your race. There are four possible races: from the S.F. Zoo to Vista Point (the far side of the Golden Gate bridge); from Vista Point to the Bay Bridge toll plaza in Oakland; the Bay Bridge toll plaza to the S.F. Zoo; or a circuit of all three. Although you do have a lot of flexibility in picking your routes, the optimal routes are often clear-cut. For example, the first leg (Zoo to G.G. Bridge) is very straightforward; no choices really necessary. In fact, any deviation from the obvious route gives your opponent a huge advantage. The second and third legs are slightly less clear-cut, and you have to do some planning if you want to avoid stoplights, one-way streets, and roadblocks. The roadblocks constitute my primary complaint about the game. There is a _lot_ of the city -- in fact, I would guess at least two-thirds -- that is not accessible. There are roadblocks and yellow fencing for miles and miles, yet you can often see traffic moving within the fences, and scenery "just on the other side" of the fences, none of which you can get to. Although I was initially thrilled with the sensation of driving through an accurate simulation of a city, I was quickly dismayed by its limitations. To be fair, the areas that _are_ simulated constitute most of the interesting areas of San Francisco: Ghiradelli Square, Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, the Transamerica Pyramid, the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Lombard Street (the famous "crookedest street in the world"), the Ferry Building, the piers, Union Square, and a lot more. Very conspicuous in their absence are the cable cars! But while there are no cable cars, there are a surprising number of _tankers_ cruising the streets of San Francisco. The bus system seems to be working very well. All in all, it's a well-populated and well-travelled city...what there is of it. Also, the entire Haight-Ashbury area is somewhere in the Never-Neverland of the yellow roadblocks. Is that poetic justice or what? VETTE! is a historic program, one with far more to offer than any other racing game to date. But aside from its remarkable concept, how does the game hold up from a practical standpoint? It may be breakthrough...but is it fun? Underneath its dozens of features, is VETTE! a good racing game? Unfortunately, there _are_ superior racing games on the market. VETTE! goes so far in attempting to break down the barriers, to "stretch the envelope" of what's possible with today's machines, that it ignores some of the basic amenities. The primary problem is one of control. The game's digital control is just a bit too clunky for smooth driving. The car turns in discreet bites of angle...too discreet for realism. To compensate, the game provides a centering key, one that will straighten your car instantly on whatever roadway you're using (provided it falls into the grid pattern of the city; it doesn't work on some of the angled roadways). While the centering key (which also makes up for the fact that the mouse is non-centering) is a nice touch, it defeats the purpose in serious competition. Of course, you don't have to use it if you don't want to. For joyriding, it's fine. But it's no substitute for a high degree of control in competitive situations. Also, the difference in handling among the four cars, aside from speed and acceleration, is subtle at best (as it might be in real life). Another smaller problem is the way the scenery shifts from one area to the next. Often the roadway, background, and surrounding scenery will suddenly shift with no warning whatsoever. For example, you're driving through the Presidio (on Lincoln Blvd, presumably) and you can see the mountains, the city, and the bridge in the background. The foreground is simply a featureless brown plain. Suddenly, pop! You're on the bridge, surrounded by water. This is slightly jarring, but not a serious problem. The instructions were obviously printed long before the program was finished, and the result is really two manuals: the basic manual and a six-page pamphlet of errata, corrections, and clarifications. Add to this two maps of San Francisco (one detailed street guide, and one more general topographical map), plus a keyboard reference/dashboard guide, and you have a confusing mass of paraphernalia. Fortunately, the game is much easier to learn than it looks. And the exhaustive background of the VETTE! is interesting (if not required) reading. I enjoyed VETTE! quite a bit, but in its current incarnation, it won't replace my other racing games. The graphics, despite the sudden scenery changes, are very impressive. There's an enormous variety of views available: regular "cockpit" view, out the left window, out the right window, and an amazingly flexible helicopter view (my favorite) that lets you change the angle and height of the view. The dashboard provides a concise, handy guide that gives you a constant readout of the street names (the one you're on and the cross street you're approaching), the current speed limit, the cross street's direction (one-way or two-way), and the upcoming traffic marker. There's a small toggleable dashboard map that displays your (and your opponent's) approximate position in the city; there are side mirrors and an optional rear view mirror. The buildings can be eliminated completely from the scenery, or merely their windows can be removed. The more "extras" you turn off, the faster the animation will run -- an important consideration because slower machines will really be crippled by the game's graphic intensity. And the modem feature is a unique addition, one that should make other manufacturers ask themselves why they didn't think of it first. Three versions of the game are included in the IBM package: the CGA version on a 5-1/4" disk, the CGA version on a 3-1/2" diskette, and the EGA version on a 5-1/4" high density disk. The EGA version is also available on a 3-1/2" diskette (for an extra charge). However, because the files themselves are unprotected (the game uses a document check as copy protection), you can copy the files from one format to another, if you have access to a machine with both format drives. The game will also run in Hercules mode. Though the driving portions of VETTE! are in 320x200 resolution, some of the more static screens -- the opening and closing screens, dynamometer, and other portions -- are in an excellent 620x200 mode. The CGA version of the game requires 512K; the EGA version requires 640K. The game can sense the speed of your processor (a minimum of 7 MHz is required) and will adjust the display accordingly. However, you may want to reconfigure it to add more graphic detail (at a cost of speed) or more speed (by sacrificing graphic detail). I would say that 12 MHz or better is optimal; if your machine runs at 8 MHz, you may not be satisfied with the frame rate/graphic compromises you'll have to make. Joystick and mouse are both optional. Spectrum HoloByte certainly deserves congratulations for VETTE! What is less certain, though, is whether their efforts have produced a program that is as satisfactory from a gaming standpoint as it is fascinating from a technical standpoint. That will depend on how important precise control is to the racing game fan. For joyriding, VETTE! is nonpareil. VETTE! is published and distributed by Spectrum HoloByte.