User Rating: 9.7 | Daytona USA ARC
Daytona USA Arcade is probably one of the best racing games ever made. Sega´s reputation in the arcade market is well known. Daytona delivers stock car racing in a game with incredible graphics, simple and precise control and a fast and steady frame rate. If you add overtaking cars at high speeds listening to an incredible soundtrack to all of the technical aspects you will have one of the best arcade racing games ever. The game has high resolution graphics with an incredible steady frame rate that gives you the feel of speed like few racing games do. Tracks are packed with turns and tunnels, ups and downs, everything well detailed and textured. Although the car models look great the wheels may seem like the ones found on Virtua Racing but not as bad of course. The game also has a nice effect of the cloud´s image reflecting on the car´s window. The arcade version has little problems related to the drawing distance, you will barely notice it. If you damage your car it will affect its performance in race. The gameplay is the best part of Daytona USA. The game feels precise and easy to handle as mentioned before. To win races you need to master powersliding and memorise gear changes for each turn, of course you can win without it but this makes winning a lot easier and believe me, it is a lot of fun. The game offers 3 main tracks to race and for options of car, you also choose between manual and automatic transmission. There are 4 camera views to choose from giving you different feel of speed. Considering the number of cars on track keeping the frame rate steady ensure precise control of the cars. The multiplayer of Daytona is amazingly fun and you can have up to 8 player racing against each other in any track available in the game. Another great work from AM2 is the game´s audio. I´ve listen to few soundtracks capable of injecting the amount of adrenaline in the player´s vein like this game does. The car engine sound is one of the best even for actual games like Nascar Thunder 2004. Daytona USA is a sure bet for especially for fans of arcade racing games and it still can be found out there to be played. Please, don´t get me wrong, I´m considering the harware available by the time this game came out.
