Review: Classic Racers Elite
Although racing games aren’t my first choice when it comes to selecting a genre of video games, I am partial to burning some rubber every now and then. Sega Rally stands the test of time as one of my favourite racing games, and more recently Dirt 5, and Hotshot Racing have provided me with a sense of speed and adrenaline. Will Classic Racers Elite be added to this exclusive list?
The first thing I noticed as I was about to press X to start the game was the blurb for Classic Racers Elite. It says, “Enjoy the era of iconic cars and drive brutally to get the best of them.” I’m not quite sure I understand the term ‘drive brutally’, but that is a minor point. The other phrase in the sentence which is slightly misleading is ‘iconic cars’, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
As the game opens up with the generic rock n’ roll music, the camera pans around one of the cars which is available. There are two options to start with which are Championship and Free Run mode.
The Championship offers the player 12 events in which to take part. Each event has several races which must be completed before you can move onto the next event. These races are against the clock and must be completed within the time, otherwise they need to be started again. There are no races against other vehicles, which for me, severely limits the appeal of this type of game. This leads me onto my next issue.
The time trials themselves are very simplistic and don’t require a great deal of skill. Put it like this, I haven’t failed a race and have breezed through each one I have played. There is very little replay value other than trying to beat other people’s times on the leaderboard, but realistically, who is going to do that?
Racing games live and die by the handling of the cars and the best word I can use to describe the cars in Classic Racers Elite is ok. There isn’t the thrill of power sliding around a corner that you normally associate with some of the best racing games. The handling isn’t terrible, and it works, but I’d hoped for a bit more, especially from a game with already limited options.
The graphics are again ok, with the cars looking shiny and different views being available when racing. However, there is some absolutely hideous screen tearing which is so distracting it makes it very difficult to properly enjoy the game.
Going back to the point I mentioned earlier about having the chance to drive ‘iconic cars’. Well, to be frank, this is very misleading as there are no officially licenced cars in the game. I’m no expert when it comes to cars, but there are various vehicles which look authentic, but have totally different names to their real-life counterparts. For example, a Mini Cooper is now called an Astun Macro, and a Ford Escort Mk 1 is now called a Fred Convoy Mark 1 RS 1600. If there weren’t so many other issues with the game, I would have let this slide (no pun intended), but it seems very misleading to suggest there are iconic cars available when they aren’t the real thing.
As you can probably tell, I didn’t enjoy playing Classic Racers Elite and deleted from my hard drive faster than Lewis Hamilton can get around Silverstone. I always qualify my reviews by saying that I’ve never made a game, so fair play to anyone who does go to the effort of making something from nothing. However, I also believe that if you’re going to charge money for something (Classic Racers Elite is currently £24.99) then I should let people know what they are going to get for their money.
As of time of writing Dirt 5 is £8.24 on PlayStation and Hotshot Racing is £15.99. In my opinion you’d be much better off getting one of these rather than buying Classic Racers Elite.
Review by Chris.
