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Road Trip
  PS2DrivingUC  
  opened by paleface at 21:02:10 08/31/03  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=PS2; cat=Driving; reg=NA]
           
If I were a super-deformed car, I would want to live here. You've got a huge, lovely island of soft rolling hills, scenic bridges and unique raceways to cavort in, your choice of shops and attractions to discover, secret coins to search out, friendly fellow cars in need of your driving prowess, and gosh just so many things to do and see.
 
You make money (you can even name the currency) by placing well in races, which can also earn you permits to the next higher racing class. Spend money on the car upgrades of your choice to turn your little penny racer into a lean, mean, tire-shreddin' machine. There's also something about hiring and training racing partners but I haven't found any yet.
 
For a PS2 game the graphics stink but for a Choro Q game (oh, you did know that this was called "Choro Q HG 2" in Japan, right?) they're superb, replacing the horrible chunkiness of the PS1 games with nice smooth bright colors, especially lots of nice grassy green and sea blue--except at night, of course, when the land is dark and your headlights come on.
 
The physics are awful, sometimes it feels like epileptic gods are batting you around in a fit as you go over bumps, and even just turning moderately hard can result in bizarre stuttering. And the AI just follows the most efficient line.
 
But none of this matters, because the real point here is just to explore, juice up your ride, run a few races, meet some funky car friends, and have a good time. The little towns spread around the island each have a different theme and each have car shops where you can find unique parts and join a race on the local race tracks. Oh and mini-games, there are supposedly a lot of those, but I haven't found any yet. The game keeps track of your total mileage and from the looks of things you're going to get an awful lot of it out of this budget title.
    

 
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