OK, you've got a bunch of Japanamation vehicles (which all look like they might stop any second and get together to form that dopey second version of Voltron) spinning madly around a track that looks like you're viewing it through a kaleidoscope, and you've got to beat them to the finish line piloting a car that handles almost as smoothly as the broken Tilt-A-Whirl at your local fairground - welcome to Choro Q 2. Despite the fact that the original is in a neck-and-neck run with Ridge Racer for most popular Japanese racer, Choro Q 2 subjects players to features that are at very best annoying, and at their worst, downright infuriating. Let's start with the graphics.
Having developed the softly beautiful Toshinden, it's obvious that the folks at Takara at least KNOW how to put together a good-looking title, but no proof of such is to be found in Choro Q 2. The game's collection of ultra-grainy, slow moving tracks is combined with cars that have polygon counts so low that you could take them to geometry class as examples of cubes; this makes for something less than a spectacular play background. To the game's credit, however, there are loads of different types of terrain displayed, from dark muddy roads to underwater tracks that are shadowed by the passing of boats overhead. Unfortunately, no matter how creative the courses are, they all look pretty crummy. (By the way, all of this goes for the two-player mode as well.).
Those courses also play pretty badly. Apparently designed to confuse rather than challenge, most of the roundabouts in the Choro Q 2 universe feature jumps followed by sharp turns that force you to either creep over the potential jump (no fun) or to plow into a wall of dirt at Mach 4 (more fun, but not so good for your overall time). For most, none of this will matter, because the control is so bad that simply driving the cars in a straight line is so challenging that you come to enjoy running into things - it's the only time you'll know what your car is going to do next.
Bad graphics, bad control, and a soundtrack that sounds like it was copied straight off the 'Generic Music for Japanese Game Designers' soundtrack - these are not the ingredients of a topnotch game. Although the personalized play elements - in the form of winning money and buying new parts for your car - are pretty cool, they're not NEARLY cool enough to make up for the just plain bad gaming that you have to deal with. If you're into imports, and you're looking for the next place to go with your bucks, I would recommend that you spend your money elsewhere. Choro Q 2 is best left to huge fans of the original and those who think that a huge car selection makes up for lousy gameplay.
