GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

CART Fury Hands-On

Midway's latest surreal arcade game is coming to the PlayStation 2, loaded with extras. We have hands-on impressions of an early build of the port.

1 Comments

Every once in a while, Midway provides a new game that gives people a refreshing, fun experience. Past games on the list include NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Hydro Thunder, and Ready 2 Rumble. This time around, Midway is coming out with CART Fury, a game with extraordinary arcade physics, great graphics and effects, and lots of extras to extend the replay value.

As the name implies, CART Fury takes full advantage of its Championship Auto Racing Teams license. The game puts you in the shoes of some of the most well-known CART drivers and sits you behind the wheel of their respective cars. The game has 10 initial playable CART drivers and five hidden drivers that can be unlocked as you play through the game. Along with the CART license came the rights to use several real tracks, and the game takes advantage of this by having seven of its 18 tracks modeled after real-life locations.

The open-wheel car models in the game are nothing to get excited about, but they are nice nonetheless. To keep the frame rate consistent and to allow several cars to be on the screen at one time, Midway has kept the number of polygons used on the car models to a minimum. The tracks, however, boast extreme detail. Tons of buildings, trees, people, and even high-speed flying jets can be found throughout the game. When wrecks occur, cars will flip several times, and they'll break up into several pieces. If you hit a large enough piece of car debris, you will likewise wreck. In some cases, six or seven cars can pile up in a wreck, leaving debris all over the track. You can force other cars to wreck by running them into a wall or by clipping their tires enough that they wear out. Clipping another car's tires can be a bit risky, though, as you are also harming your own tires and can cause yourself to wreck.

Along with a straight port of the arcade version of CART Fury, Midway is packing tons of extras into the game, including a simulation mode, a season mode, and a training mode. There is also a subgames mode, which contains several mini-modes. The arcade port of the game is found in the arcade mode: Just pick a track, pick a driver, select the difficulty, and race. You also have a boost meter that refills after each checkpoint. By completing a lap under a certain amount of time, you can turn your normal boost into a superboost that provides even more speed. When you use your superboost, your car leaves Back to the Future-like fire trails, and your screen starts rattling, for emphasis. The season mode follows the same principle as the arcade mode, but you race each track one by one, earning points to win the championship.

Your mission in the simulation mode is the same as in the season mode--to win the points championship--but Midway has made the simulation mode more difficult and more in-depth. Once you select the driver and car you want to use, you can adjust the wing angle, tire pressure, and shocks of the car. Adjusting these settings affects the car's speed, drag, and traction. The other major difference between the two modes is that in the simulator mode you can't use any "boost" during the race, which makes winning much more difficult.

The subgames mode consists of six minimodes, including last man standing, demolition, block your opponent, time trial, follow the line, and lock on. In the last-man-standing subgame, the objective is to challenge a rival to a race and beat him. Although there is a full lineup of cars in the race, you don't have to win the race as long as you place ahead of the rival you have challenged. In the demolition subgame, you have to force other racers on the track to crash. The more cars you cause to crash, the more points you obtain. The mission in block your opponent is to not let your opponent pass you throughout the race. You have to do whatever it takes to keep him behind you, even if it means forcing him to crash. If your opponent stays ahead of you for more than three seconds, your game is over. The time-trial submode has the same rules as most time-trial modes in other games--you must try to better your lap time on a track. The follow-the-line subgame teaches you the fastest path throughout a track, to help you improve your time when racing. The lock-on subgame is a mode where CART Fury becomes more of a shooter than a racing game. Using a lock-on targeting system, you must blow up other cars on the track. What makes this tricky is that you aren't shooting a gun or missiles at other cars, but rather ticking time bombs. You must destroy another car with each time bomb before time runs out, or your game is over.

CART Fury also has a mission-based mode called Racing 101. Racing 101 has you choose one of four types of tracks on which to learn how to handle your car better. Each track is lined with barrels on each side of the raceway, and you have to complete a lap around the course as quickly as possible without hitting a barrel.

CART Fury's controls are easy to pick up but very difficult to master. The learning curve in the game is much more difficult than it appears to be at first, so you can expect to attempt a given track several times before finishing it at the top of the pack. Each track has a hidden shortcut, which lets you clip a second or two off of each lap time. Using your boost smartly can also be the difference between winning and losing. CART Fury is like most other racing games in that it has yoyo-like AI. You are never able to get too far ahead of the pack, and if you fall behind because you wreck your car, the pack slows down so you can catch up. Also, the other drivers on the track often race dirty with their constant bumps, sideswipes, and cutoffs, which makes winning a race an even greater challenge.

Home ports of Midway games have often been shoddy in the past, but CART Fury seems to be coming along very well. With all the extra modes being implemented, gamers who want a fun arcade racing game with a lot of replay value should keep an eye on this game. CART Fury will hit store shelves this summer.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 1 comments about this story