Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition

Review by: Daniel Lopez

This review is somewhat preliminary cause I only played the game for little over an hour. The first thing I noticed was that Saturn mode was no longer available so as far as I can tell you always have to play with time ticking away altough if you set options on easy you get more time but to me it's not the same. Next thing I noticed and you will too is the music just isn't as cool as it used to be. The music on the beginning after you press start and are choosing your car is great but no other tracks were too memorable to me. Now onto the graphics yes they are full screen (whopee they should have been from the start) and the textures are much nicer the frame rate and resolution are noticeably improved, there's more roadside and backround detail,the crashes are pretty cool the whole screen rotates around your car as it's flying through the air and the whole thing just looks better. But pop-up does rear it's ugly head as it did in the original in a few spots I could swear it's worse than in the first. The two new Saturn designed tracks are kind of uninspired I think and were nothing too great. Those two don't have much pop-up cause they were designed with Saturn in mind. And finally game-play there's many cars to choose from and I only used two so far but I tought the gameplay was touchier and not as tight as the original. And my one nit-pick is that the announcer voice has changed and he talks with a sort of country accent that just grates on my nerves after awhile certainly not as amusing soundidng as the original announcer. Even the top position screen has changed and now the writing is small and not as easy to read as the original. So while I would have to play it more to give it a more fair review my first impressions aren't very good and I am very letdown maybe because after all this time and all the hype I expected so much and I didn't get it. I "borrowed" the game from where I work certain I would buy it tommorow but after playing it I'm not so sure I wanna keep it. Maybe the two-player is a saving grace but I haven't had a chance to try that out yet. Sega Rally is still on top on Saturn as far as graphics and sound/music are concerned. I think I'll hold onto my original Daytona cause I like the handling better on that one.

Graphics : 7
Music/sound: 6
gameplay : 8
overall : 7