#ngamer

There’s your first mistake. Not the female bit (I’m watching you, internet), but the children bit. Never, ever, ever, EVER, let kids design or organise anything remotely commercially important. If you’ve ever had to suffer through a local news piece about twelve year old kids pretending to be the G8 or something, as if they have any idea how to solve the world’s problems, you’ll know what I mean. This isn’t a Trunchbull-esque rant about how horrible children are; I just mean that it’s not feasible for a child to be able have enough experience to know what a wide variety of people would benefit from. A videogame might be one thing you could entrust to a child (especially if you’re still asking the local news to run a piece on videogames; heaven forbid a sensible discussion take place between actual grown-ups). Luckily, we don’t have to worry about a scathing review destroying the hopes and dreams of a bunch of game designers of the future; a quick look at the Credits page of the manual (remember those?) shows no female names among the staff until you get to the Special Thanks category. So when they say “Designed by girls”, they mean “Designed after a brief 5 minute focus group and yes/no questionnaire with some girls who agreed to turn up to get out of half of their maths lesson”.

So, Action Girlz Racing then. Even the name sounds like it needs to be followed by an apology. Ignoring the Z that has substituted both the S and the self-respect of the marketing department, the other problem with that title is… maybe it’s just my world-weary, sullied, tainted adult brain, but if someone asked what the game box in my hand was (and they did – no nuclear fallout shelter for me, thanks you very much) I was absolutely petrified they’d think that, had I revealed the name, it was pornographic in some way. Action Girlz Racing. Like BMX XXX for the Mario Kart world. It isn’t, of course. But then what is it? And can I find any fun in it, despite my not being part of the Venn Diagram section marked “girlz”? I know you know the answer already; be quiet.

While we’re here, thanks to my sister, Spantac, who earlier in her life was a “girlz” before evolving into a “women”, as well of course being a gamer – there’s a target demographic right there! Her observations from across the room (she had better things to do than actually play this game) are in italics throughout. Also thanks to Ross Phillips, who was brave/foolish enough to purchase this game, along with a whole set of the worst Wii shovelware that 2008 and NGamer’s Scatfest had to offer.

The first impression you get isn’t good. The Wii menu splash screen image has been expanded from a lower resolution, with the tell-tale signs of Photoshop’s best attempts to anti-alias upwards without the assistance of a soothsayer. It turns out this is a PS2 port, which itself is a port of a PC game (this may also explain why, in 2008, we get a 4:3 resolution). It’s not like they didn’t have a better image to work from, as it’s the same image as the one on the front of the box; a solitary piece of promotional art it would seem.

I lie slightly; that wasn’t my first bad impression. Before I’d started playing the first time, I assumed the worst; I’d read the manual before starting the game, so I saw… gulp… motion-controlled steering. Now. I love Nintendo. I love the Wii. I love Mario Kart Wii. But I elected to go with the Wii Wheel – supposedly the solution to make Mario Kart more realistic (which is something everyone wanted of course – SARCASM MULTIPLIER). Real steering wheels are connected to the vehicle they are destined to control; I never fully got used to the independent wheel supported purely by its driver, and impulsive reactionary steering didn’t make its way down from my brain to my arms. I soldiered on, but sometimes it wasn’t worth, for example, attempting to dodge banana skins. Therefore, motion control steering on a budget (not to mention shoving the remote forward to use an item) was not wanted. Still, looking through the game menu, there were more positive signs. It seemed to take a lot of inspiration from Mario Kart, e.g. in terms of its structure, so maybe it was too early to be pessimistic. There are 3 difficulty levels, 3 engine speeds and 3 difficulty levels and three “cups” (as Mario Kart has now cemented into the dictionary of the... er… ground), all named after flowers. Girlz like flowers. Even I know that! Girlz!

Initially you can only choose 4 out of the 8 girlz (Apologies to Microsoft Word, which is running out of red zig-zags at this point). There’s:

Amber, the prom queen (it should be pointed out that Data Design Interactive are a British company, or were at this stage – we don’t have prom queens over here, so I’d like to know which of the girl designers came up with that – the one force-fed PopGirl, I’d bet - tsk).

Alex, who is a footballer (also token cockney English character; after much – too much – time, I realised that her speech sample includes “aat ‘moi waaay”. Thanks then).

Latisha, who is a… uh… her background pattern appears to just be a circle. It’s almost as if being the African American character counts as a profession  (before I get massively sued for libel, I’ve since found out from a clip of the PC version that she’s a taxi driver).

and… Bianca. Bianca’s job is… racing driver. In a racing game, one of the characters is a specialist racing driver. It’s like playing a 100m videogame: “Do you want to play as Usain Bolt or Stephen Hawking”?

Not yet unlocked are Courtney (skater girl), Blossom (large round shades and flower accessories suggest hippy – again a stereotype that turn-of-the-millennium kids are definitely gong to think of), Akiko (caught mid-sneeze it would seem, on the race screen, and “badly supported” on the box art), and Kat (no idea – green hair, spanner – let’s go for… mechanic). I only got as far as unlocking Courtney, if you must know. Note the characters look completely different in the game menu compared with the commissioned box-art. Also, out of the 5 characters drawn on the afore-mentioned box art, 4 of those are the locked out ones. I know that sounds like a little complaint, but it doesn’t follow any natural though process by a group of human beings invested in what thy’re doing. it’s all wrong. It’s all wrong. Oh, while we’re moaning about the menu graphics, this is a basic thing about interface design: if you make a button highly transparent, human beings have been conditioned to understand that the button is not accessible at the moment; not that, actually, it’s the button you should definitely be clicking to proceed.

The first time through, having totted all this up, I did worry that I was just looking for faults. I know it’s fun to read/write a bad review, but I was starting to feel like a jerk. So, having chosen everyone’s favourite Cockney Lass Hello Guvnor Hows Yer Farver Aat Moi Way Alex Cor Blimey, I made a concentrated effort to enjoy things, now that the actual game was to begin.

Well, the graphics aren’t so bad. FOR AN N64 GAME LOL LOL LOL LOLZ!. This isn’t a lazy put-down; seriously, have a butchers. The polygon count matches that of Diddy Kong Racing or (*does little bit of sick*) Crash Team Racing. But it’d be hypocritical of me to dismiss a game purely based on its graphical fidelity (on my Tumblr page you can see my attempts at “graphics”); the important thing would be how it plays. And as the announcer counted down in a somewhat surprised manner (if you’re counting down, 2 does indeed follow 3), the race (which appeared to be set in some kind of “high school” as the youth of today call it) began.

Uh…

Oh… dear.

Oh, no no no no no.

To cut a long story short, the track is almost impossible to negotiate. However, I quite like the long story that I just cut short, so, if you’ll forgive the diary-esque paragraphs…

Immediately after the (not actually physically shown on the ground) start/finish line, there was a wall with 2 sets of closed double doors. However, the road headed directly towards these doors, so I took a gamble and crashed into the doors, assuming they’d open. They did, luckily, with a realistic swinging action - possibly the most complex animation sequence in the whole  game – but they then more-or-less obscured the next section of track until the they  were past the front distance of the camera. (Incidentally, not everyone Chooses Wisely – if you watch the Game Grumps video, they assume the doors are a barrier, and immediately turn the wrong way. In Mario Kart, you’d never be put in that situation.)

The first sets of doors do require you to steer a little to avoid the central pillar. Therefore it was at this stage I tested the motion controls of the steering. There doesn’t appear to be any analogue interpretation of how much you steer, probably because of its PC roots, maybe because it would require someone to think / write more code / test. I’d say that, for the first half hour of the game, I spent at least an hour in permanent oversteer, weaving about the school corridors, desperately trying to line up with the next staircase, and hoping I don’t clip one of the rows of lockers adorning the sides.

After the first of the afore-mentioned staircases (on which the camera angles itself to match the new gradient of the car) there was a mezzanine/balcony section with a barrier, presumably to stop kids trapped in a shit racing game from jumping to their deaths; however the mezzanine section was very narrow, and I’d have to turn right immediately to avoid the barrier. Thanks to the camera’s previous gradient trickery, I couldn’t possibly have seen the right-hand turn – or the ground in general – until I crashed into the barrier. Even if, on a later lap, I remembered that this was there, the narrow shape meant I still wouldn’t get the turn correct, and hit the barrier at least a little. This first lap? I hit the barrier head on and Blues Brothersed up the invisible wall. This first time round, the game declared me “stuck”, and respawned me on the track, facing the direction I had no idea I was supposed to be facing. Other laps, I might land, stationary, still facing the same barrier that caused my recent upwards adventure, and have to reverse, to give myself space to turn right at long, long, last (no Mario Kart quick spot turns here). But no! Do you remember the staircase I just drove up? Reversing meant I ended up on that again. The maths of the acceleration is really dodgy, and it takes far too long to go from backwards to forwards motion. Therefore, having reached a velocity of 0 on the stairs, the game now decided to declare me “stuck”, having wasted 5 seconds trying to resolve the matter myself, and respawned me in the same manner as if it though I’d properly come a cropper the first time round. Thanks then. If you ever had a go on a holiday resort go-kart track as a kid, you’ll recognise the attitude of the marshals.

Already behind, I eventually reached a another narrow set of corridors and right-angle turns. The game is kind enough to place a “turn right” sign in the corridor. On the first lap, where I turned too early? I hit the inside corner. If, on another lap, I turned too late? I caught my car on the lockers on the wall round the corner, the course immediately and blindly narrowing the road you thought you had access to, which was already pretty narrow. Whereas Mario Kart would never have any right-angle corners to bash into, and in the worst carcase scenario would let you slide across the barrier until you turn back onto the track, any collision with the scenery in Action Girlz Racing causes you to either stop completely, or bounce off at an angle that ignores any existing force, as if Newton got bored of clarifying the laws of motion after the first one, and started doodling willies instead. Therefore the rest of the track becomes a lesson in how to do three point turns. Reverse back from the lockers. Forward and turn. Hit the lockers on the other side. Reverse again. Hit the rear wall and end up in yet another direction. Essentially it’s the game of this.

Even after I’d played this game a few times, and maybe even got “a bit good”, I never finished this first race above 5th place. I rarely ever finished 8th mind, thanks to even more janky programming (at one point there’s a giant square locker room, where one will almost always meet at least a couple of A“I” racers who have gone wrong at roughly the same time, and thus respawned simultaneously, causing a loop of car disappearance and reappearance). Steering out of the way of that mess – which of course is easier said than done – usually gains a couple of places, until you hit the next staircase/balcony combo, and the drivers, finally free of their curse, overtake you.

The annoying thing is, after this, the tracks become a lot easier. After a few goes, I could win most of the other courses. They even remembered to draw in the start/finish line sometimes! Admittedly, a crash could send me back to 8th, thanks to the afore-mentioned template physics and reluctance to help you back on your way, but it was always possible to get back into the lead, helped by the fact that the cars tended to follow each other in a “Duff Beer for Me, Duff Beer for You” kind of way. And the other tracks are actually traversable in the vehicle you are given, unlike the school, which is like entering your articulated lorry into the Monaco Grand Prix.

I don’t want just to say this game’s design was lazy. Saying a game, or its designer, is lazy, is itself lazy. I listened to a podcast, on which one of the hosts was PC Gamer executive editor Tyler Wilde. He’d made the point of encouraging his reviewers to avoid jumping to this conclusion; his point was that a lot of game designers really do want to make the best game in the world, and are constricted by limits of time, or resources, and often it’s remarkable they finish the product under these restrictions at all. And by the very fact that they’re creating a video game (and most of us haven’t) means they’re not lazy. Very few of these programming teams are the Generic Villain Group of the Week that feature on e.g. Thunderbirds. “And then we will make them play a mediocre game! Mwa ha ha ha! We don’t need to worry about making it work! We don’t care!” People don’t actually think like that.

HOWEVER

Anyone could have play tested that first track and realised that it was an abhorrent experience, and certainly, even if you’re frickin’ Anakin Skywalker, so much harder, and not nearly as enjoyable, than the races that followed. But to leave the geometry of the course like that, where even the AI can’t cope with it, even sticking to the most rudimentary single file line of basic instruction, and not even taking the easy approach of shuffling the race to end of the queue, which would at least allow Kids Who Don’t Know Better (and there are less of them nowadays, that’s for sure) to have some fun, before hitting the educational facility equivalent of Rourke’s Drift… is lazy. It’s lazy. And you have the nerve to say it’s designed by girls, for girls.

So what you’re saying is that girls only get the shit games?

With the worst controls, the worst level design, and graphics that looked ropey 2 hardware generations ago.

I’m too lazy and stupid to capture footage: watch:

Game Grumps