TGS 2000: Shutokou Battle Zero Hands-On

After reviving the Shutokou Battle series - Tokyo Xtreme Racing in the US - on the Sega Dreamcast console, Genki recently announced Shutokou Battle Zero for the Sony PlayStation 2. The game is playable at the 2000 Tokyo Game Show and we took the polygon-heavy racers for a test drive. Although Shutokou Battle Zero is technically not a port, there are a lot of similarities between the PS2 and the Dreamcast versions. The game looks a lot like the second Shutokou Battle game for the Dreamcast, but Genki has done some significant graphical work on Zero. The real-time reflections on the cars have been exaggerated in the game and are more obvious than the games that came beforehand. Also, the texturing seems to be slightly improved over the Dreamcast version and the game seems to slow down less often, when compared to Shutokou Battle 2. However, at this time the game has the familiar PS2 problem with the lack of anti-aliasing, which makes the so-called "jaggies" readily obvious.

The game controls like any traditional PS2 racer - the left analog controls direction and the right analog controls acceleration and braking. The "O" and "X" buttons can also serve as acceleration and brake controls. In fact, although this latest build did not use the analog functionality of the face buttons on the PS2 controller, according to Genki, the final version will use the feature.

Genki has also changed the rivals and several of the car options in the game. A company official revealed that Genki is also interested in including a 2 player vs. mode in the PS 2 version, but they were not sure at this time if it would make the final version. Shutokou Battle Zero will be released in Japan later this year.