If there was a video game hell, Cruis'n'USA would be in it.
~GAMEPLAY~
"Gameplay? What is this thing called "gameplay"?"
That's what the creators of this game would be saying if you asked them about it. But for the sake of this review, let's take a look at a few things that slightly resemble something called gameplay.
After watching that yawn-inducing intro, you get to choose from a multitude of tracks from real life locations. Then you choose a car. And you start the race. If you didn't turn the game off at this point, you finish the race and are left wondering what else the game has to offer.
Unfortunately for you, it offers nothing more. It can all be summed up in one word: boring.
~GRAPHICS~
So just how bad are the graphics? They're so bad, that, the horizon is very close to you and civilian cars often come from out of nowhere. So bad that, even though the draw distance is so close, 50% of the game STILL suffers from a major drop in frame rate, and particularly at crucial stages of a course. (Chicago comes to mind.)
Beverly Hills, Redwood Forest, Grand Canyon, Chicago, Washington DC.... all of these tracks suffer from bad frame rates, and what makes it even worse is that these tracks are made of almost nothing but sharp turns.
~SOUND~
Oo. Aa. Oo. Aa. Oo. Aa.....................................Oo. Aa. Oo. Aa. Oo. Aa. Oo. Aa!
That's one example of the sound tracks you can choose from while you strain to find a reason you spent money on the game. And if you got the game for free from some poor soul who actually bought it, then you're probably wondering how best to destroy it.
~VALUE~
Value for money wasn't exactly on the developer's minds when they made this game. Think about it, when you're slapping together something in order to steal people's money, you try to steal as much as you can get away with.
In the case of Cruis'n'USA, if you bought it back when it came out, you would have paid 60 whoppers for this game. To put it into perspective, you can buy a game like Resident Evil 4 (which is considered by many people as one of the best games this generation) for around $20.
But then, it's probably not very fair to be comparing a scam to an actual game.
~OVERALL~
Cruis'n'USA made more than a few unsuspecting kids cry when it was released, including myself. (Hell, it upset me so much that to this day I still want my $60 back)
It simply does not have a single redeeming value. It doesn't sound good, it doesn't look good, and it doesn't play good. It's just no fun.
And hold on for a minute if you think having a second person to play with makes Cruis'n'USA any more fun. It doesn't. Not even close.
It actually does the exact opposite, because you see, when you start a race with a second person, the already close horizon get's even closer and the frame rate get's even lower. And in parts of the game where the frame rate was bad to beginning with, it gets just downright unplayable.