DT Racer is all about driving an awesome looking car on beautiful looking tracks and having fun while doing it!
DT Racer, also known as Axel Impact International, is an aggressive racing game where you're allowed to do whatever it takes to win.
So what exactly is an aggressive racing game?
Well, in short, it's a normal racing game, but it encourages you to be aggressive against the other cars.
Bumping into your opponents causing them to spin out of control to your advantage is not just acceptable, but preferred, so there's no need to hold back anymore!
The game has twelve normal cars, upgraded racing class versions of those cars and two special super cars, giving a total number of 26 cars.
The game also has six tracks to race on, the first is a simple high-speed ring with reverse version and the five other tracks have short, long and reversed short and long versions, giving a total of 22 tracks.
The game has full damage modeling for all cars and a very detailed physics engine that even simulates the flow of wind around the car (visually noticeable when you, for example, pass cones at high speed and actually see the cones get blown away after you've passed them).
The graphics are some of the best of it's generation, only second to Forza on the Xbox when it comes to racing games, and a true beauty to behold.
It's all there; realistic shadows, realistic reflections, fullscreen anti-aliasing, dynamic speed blur, tons of details on things that aren't even important to the gameplay (I love attention to detail) and, of course, absolutely gorgeous looking cars that not only can be fully damaged visually but also so they react different by using the already mentioned physics engine to simulate how the cars handle depending on their damage.
The adjustable fullscreen anti-aliasing allows you to pick between no aa (for the best framerate and performance, highly recommended for split-screen multiplayer), 1x aa (the middleground, for those who can't make up their minds) and 2x aa (for those who want the game to look it's very best at all times, like me).
The sound in the game is all good, the engines all sound different and the music is yet another strong high point for the game with some of DJ Tïesto's best songs to date, all fitting the tracks perfectly.
The only thing I don't like with the sound in this game is the announcer voice.
For example, when I watch motorsports on television, I always have to turn off the sound so I can enjoy the show.
To me, announcer voices are like people taking in my ear as I'm trying to concentrate on something, it annoys me to no end and I will do whatever it takes to end their otherwise endless chatter.
In this game I had to sacrifice most of the engine sounds and other sound effects because I had to turn down the sound effects volume to the level where I could still hear everything else but not the voice, I would've liked if the voice had a separate volume than the other sound effects, but it's actually fine the way it is because I love the music in this game and I always turn down the sound effects to the minimum when there's good music to hear so the outcome would've been almost identical even if the voice and sound effects had had separate volumes.
The game modes are standard racing fare, you have your Arcade mode, Career mode, Time Attack mode, Free mode and 2 Player mode.
The game starts with all basic tracks available from the get-go and the reversed versions only to be unlocked after your Total Driving Distance reaches 1000km.
The Arcade mode is where you race to unlock new cars.
Qualifying/Winning all six races unlocks the racing class equivalent of your car, and after driving 200km with your car you unlock a brand new car in the class above the car you were using.
In Arcade mode you chose one car to race for six races and you can freely chose to have car damage active or not, the versions of the tracks you race on are randomly chosen each time you start a new Arcade and you can restart the Arcade at any time.
Career mode is the most strategy focused part of the game.
It has you racing for credits in different preset tournaments that you can race as many times as you like, starting with free ones where the payoff is minimal, to the longer, more difficult ones where you first have to pay a registry fee to participate in but where the payoffs are much higher if you win.
You can freely purchase any car in the game as long as you have enough credits, but remember that buying cars in Career mode does not affect the cars you have unlocked/yet to unlock otherwise in the rest of the game.
You can also customize some basic stats for your car(s) like downforce and what type of wheels you have.
You also have to keep a watchful eye on your fuel tank so you won't run out in the middle of a lap without being able to get to the pits for a refill.
You can not deactivate car damage in Career mode, and repairing your car after each race costs credits depending on the amount of damage, so be a bit more careful in this mode as taking big risks may set your economy back even if you win the race.
Time Attack mode is normal Time Attack where you race for the best lap times with your unlocked cars on your unlocked tracks.
Damage modeling can be turned off.
The Free mode is where you pick any of your unlocked cars to race on any of your unlocked tracks for an infinite amount of laps.
You get to chose if car damage is active or not and if you race alone or with opponents.
The 2 Player mode is like Free mode but with another player using split-screen.
You can deactivate car damage, drive with your friend without or with opponents and you also get to pick where you and your friend start each race at the starting grid so the less experienced player can get a head start.
The framerate drops the most in this mode, so aa should always be turned off.
The gameplay is where the game shines the strongest, it's actually fun to just drive in this game.
You pick a car, you pick a track and you just drive, but it's not to win against anyone or anything or to break any records and times, it's just to experience the joy of driving, it's amazing and I've never felt that in any racing game before or after this game came into my life.
I've tried close to all other racing games out there, from arcade like games like Auto Modellista to hyperrealistic ones like Enthusia Racing, from all the games in the extremely overrated Gran Turismo series to all the game in the only fairly overrated Forza series, from Metropolis Street Racer to Project Gotham Racing 4 and tons of other random racing games on just about every platform there is, but so far only DT Racer on PlayStation 2 has given me
satisfaction of just driving around.
I love how you can use real physics to your aid, that the opponents aren't just
driving on rails but can actually interact with you on a fairly equal level.
I love how the game has driving assists that help you powerslide, or drift, when you're a beginner but then work against you when you need to get better, forcing you to turn off drift assist to improve your skills and be able to compete properly when the going gets tougher.
The controls are customizable so you can pretty much make them work just the way you want them too no matter what configuration you prefer.
All cars have a set amount of nitro boost for you to use each race, it can not be refilled during races though so using it with care is a must.
DT Racer also has support for the EyeToy camera, both to take a nice little driver license photo for your profile and also for active use while racing where it serves to show your face in the rear view mirror when using the first person view.
The game offers 50hz, 60hz or Progressive Scan upon start-up.
50hz is not recommended as the game was clearly made to played at 60hz.
Well, I think that's all I can say about the game without repeating myself, so to sum everything up; it's a great game that takes advantage of what PlayStation 2 has to offer and brings you an experience that's a lot more fun and enjoyable than it's far more serious and boring competitors.