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Kart racing — or go-kart racing for those who still erroneously equate the sport with those dollar-a-lap amusement-park operations — is probably the most underrepresented form of motorsport on the PC. Formula One and NASCAR treatments certainly abound on the beige box, but anyone seeking some butt-scraping kart action has been pretty much forced to turn to consoles for such juvenile offerings as Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing.
Although Microids’ new Open Kart PC game may be a notch or two above those Nintendo kiddy titles when it comes to communicating the nuances of the sport that launched the careers of superstars like Paul Tracy, Michael Schumacher, and Jeff Gordon, it’s still a far cry from what it could or should be.
The chief problem with this French import is its thoroughly unconvincing physics and driving dynamics. Ostensibly a showcase for 100cc, 125cc, and 250cc sprint karts, Open Kart plays more like one of those handheld battery-operated games from the ’80s where you simply moved a stationary vehicle icon left and right as the scenery came toward you via a moving ribbon. Whenever you turn the steering wheel in this game, the overwhelming sensation is that the scenery is being revolved around your kart, rather than the other way around.
Compounding this problem is a sad-sack viewing system that’s limited to chase-cam and bumper-cam perspectives. There’s no proper cockpit view, and when mixed with Open Kart’s horribly claustrophobic and ludicrously walled-in fantasy circuits, the experience has a distinct rats-in-a-maze feel. The game’s 10 “international” tracks are positively teeming with blind corners — as well as some highly unlikely local scenery elements like Swiss Alps and Egyptian markets — and ultimately have about as much in common with real-life kart venues as Mickey does with a genuine mouse.
Much of this could probably be overlooked if Open Kart offered a solid arcade racing experience to make up for its lack of real-world authenticity. But there isn’t much. AI coding is inconsistent: the computer drivers never seem to be able to qualify and race at the same pace. Unspectacular graphics only serve to accentuate the game’s myriad physical and visual shortcomings.
Even more galling, however, is a surprisingly buggy interface that forced a crash at the race-load screen on my computer every 10 minutes or so. I probably would have breezed through Open Kart’s three-stage Career mode in under two hours if it weren’t for the fact that I had to Ctrl-Alt-Delete my way out of these lock-ups more than 60 times in the course of a single afternoon. (Microids’ tech-support department could only postulate that my system’s Voodoo5 card was to blame.)
In fact, about the only thing that makes Open Kart a tolerable gaming experience
at all is its extensive collection of advanced gameplay features and enhancements.
So just how does one go about enhancing a game that pretty much sucks fumes
to begin with? Well, first you offer a full Career mode complete with prize
money, parts upgrades, chassis tweaking, sponsorship involvement, and a VCR-style
replay screen. Then you toss in an eight-person LAN/Internet multiplayer mode
for good measure.
Still, the end product doesn’t come close to stacking up to RealNetworks’
Super 1 Karting (the current standard-bearer for PC karting titles) in any measurable
way. This “open” kart is a case closed.