Emotion Wins the Race

TOKYO - Square? Racing? Are you crazy? Well, maybe not. See, Square has slowly started to diversify its lineup of games from the majority being RPGs to Chocobo-themed games and is now getting into sports. One of the first titles will be Driving Emotion Type-S (we'll just call it Type-S from here on out), set to debut this Spring on the PlayStation2 for 6800 yen.

At first glance, the game looks great, especially the “in-the-car” viewpoint (which has a bit of a motion blur on it to make it look a little hazy…interesting…). Only problem is, while we were told the game is near 80 percent complete, the demo shown controlled as if you were driving on ice. Very fluttery, and not at all tight. It also didn't seem to take advantage of the PS2's “everything's analog” Dual Shock. With games like Gran Turismo, Sega GT and the Ridge Racer series out there, it makes this look downright silly (at this point, remember, this game is still “early” and will probably go through plenty of tweaking before release). But at least if Square can fix the wild spinouts (“I've let go of the analog stick and yet I'm still doing doughnuts…WHY?”), it'd be a lot more fun.

There were hints of slowdown, mainly in corners (like Sega Rally 2 on the DC), but most of the time it ran at 60 fps. Let's just hope Square can bump up the gameplay to match the game's stellar graphics.