Driving around the
tracks in Auto Modellista reminds me an awful lot of what it was like to
drive on the icy roads last winter here in Podunk, USA. At first it was
scary because my car would slide around and try to spin out, but the
more I drove in those conditions the better I got. Auto Modellista is
exactly the same. The cars feel like the tracks are covered in ice, but
the more you play and the more you learn, the more enjoyable the game
becomes. Once you get used to the controls, Auto Modellista is a decent
racing game that has a lot to offer. It is just too bad there isnt
nearly enough of it to last very long outside of racing online and the
novelty of the cel-shaded graphics wears off pretty fast.
In all honesty,
the game doesnt control all that bad. I guarantee that youll spin out
quite a bit during your first lap, but unless you are completely dense
youll learn from it and do better on the very next lap. You do have to
make a lot of course corrections even going down the straights, but it
isnt anything to cry about because once you learn what you are doing
the game is pretty darn fun.
If the tracks
had been full of sharp corners or were overly difficult the control
could have been a problem. Instead, the tracks are nice and wide and
dont have very many corners that require you to slow down too much
which make them perfect for this game. It makes you wonder, though.
Which came first, the slippy-slidey cars or the wide-open tracks?
Auto
Modellista has all of the options and modes youd expect in a racing
game with the main single player focus being on the Garage Life mode. In
Garage Life mode, you choose a car and enter it in races where you can
win new tuning parts as well as items you can use to customize your
garage. There isnt a money system in AM so dont worry about not being
able to choose your favorite car right form the beginning. You are
allowed to change cars whenever you desire as most of the 60+ cars are
available to you from the start with the rest being unlocked when you
finish certain races. When you find the car you want to use, you can
then choose from different body modifications as well as adjust several
tuning options so the car not only looks exactly like you want it, but
performs just the way you like it too. The items you can win to decorate
your garage are things like posters and sponsor logos you can put on the
walls as well as tools and other junk you would normally find in a
racing garage. You will also receive e-mail in Garage Life mode that
will give you tips on the tracks as well as tell you about any new parts
or options you unlock.
The Garage
Life mode has quite a few shortcomings, however. There arent all that
many races to actually compete in and it is possible to win all of the
races and unlock all of the hidden parts and options in only seven or
eight hours. Any new parts you earn are applied to every car you own so
there isnt any reason to play through the races more than the one or
two times it takes to open up everything. Also, the car customization
options seem pretty cool at first but there just arent enough of them
to keep you interested for very long. You only have two or three choices
for hoods or spoilers or other aerodynamic pieces on each car so the
customization options are pretty limited. Another thing that would have
made the game better is if more cars were included. There are over sixty
cars available in Auto Modellista, but they are mostly from Japanese
manufacturers. I would have liked to have seen more American and
European carmakers represented because it is pretty hard for me to get
excited over the selection of low horsepower Japanese "mini" minivans.
The cars are all officially licensed, but I just wish there were more of
them that I would actually want to use.
Garage Life
does have quite a few good things going for it, though. You can design
your own stickers with an easy to use paint program and put them on your
car. There is also a feature called Shop Auto Modellista that allows you
to swap engines between cars made by the same manufacturer. A lot of the
cars you can use are classic Japanese sports cars that, sadly, dont
have much horsepower. By putting a newer engine into these older cars
you can make them perform as sporty as they look. The racing is also
pretty good while it lasts, but like I said above it doesnt take very
long to do everything there is to do.
Another mode in
Auto Modellista that is surprisingly fun is the VJ & Theater mode where
you can make custom replay videos. You can take a saved replay and add
music and special effects to create your own video. There are a lot of
different filters and overlays you can put on the video as well as a lot
of different camera options, so you can actually create some pretty
impressive videos with this mode.
And now onto
Auto Modellistas most recognizable feature, the cel-shaded graphics.
Overall, they look very good and offer the game a distinctive look that
does a much better job of setting it apart from other racers than the
gameplay. The environments you race in look nice and include areas such
as mountain roads and city streets. There are night races and races in
rainy weather, and the graphics look spectacular throughout. The cars
look great but arent as detailed as they could have been. This is just
a minor complaint but an extra line here or some shading there could
have added a lot of extra depth to the cars that gear-heads would have
appreciated. The cars cannot be damaged and youll see the same special
effects for wind and skids over and over, but the graphics are stunning
overall.
The
sound in AM isnt as good, which is a shame. The music is decent, but
the sound effects are annoying. None of the cars sound like they should
and the monotonous buzzing/whining sound the engine makes when you hit
top speed is absolutely grating. There is an announcer in the game that
likes to scream out things like "Good job!" and "That was close!" at
seemingly random times, something that becomes annoying very quickly.
Auto
Modellistas main attraction once you have completed the Garage Life
mode can be found in the online mode provided you have a Network Adapter
and broadband Internet access. You can race against up to seven other
cars at a time. This is strange to me since there can be up to eight
cars on screen in a race online but you can only have six in the single
player game. Customizing the look of your car and tuning the performance
so you can show off online is an intriguing concept and could definitely
become an addiction for people who really get into the Auto Modellista
style. I wasnt actually able to race online since my local ISP still
thinks that it is OK to charge $100 a month for broadband. I have heard
that online races run pretty much lag free and that your experience
varies depending on whether you can find people who want to actually
race or people who just crash and bash into walls.
Auto
Modellista is a decent racing game, but it almost feels incomplete. The
racing is fun once you learn what youre doing, but the lack of "stuff
in the game is a bit of a disappointment. I want more options to
customize my car. I want more races to compete in. I also want more cars
that I actually would want to use. Online play is a nice addition and
the Garage Life mode is fun while it lasts. While playing the game I
just couldnt shake the feeling that this game was more Capcom showing
the world that it is possible to make a cel-shaded racing game than a
serious effort on their part to make a superb racing title. The bad news
is that Auto Modellista is a good but not great racing game. The good
news is that Auto Modellista 2 should be freaking awesome provided they
give us more stuff to play with and tweak the gameplay a little bit.
Auto Modellista is worth a rental just to find out what all of the fuss
is about, but is only worth a purchase to hardcore racing fans or people
who intend to spend a lot of time with it online.