The Return of the N64: Top Gear Overdrive

Howdy all and we are off to Day 2 of Return of the N64. Amazingly we are not reviewing an action adventures platform game. Instead, we check out a racing game that came out in 1998 by the now defunct Snowblind Studios creating a 1 to 4 player racing game divided by seasons.

This is Top Gear Overdrive.

DAMN ICE!!!!!

With 3 charges of nitrous oxide giving the car a boost should be used sparingly. Power ups are available in the form of cash and more nitrous oxide. While the cash is normally added along with the winnings at the end of the race can be used for upgrades on brakes, engines, and better acceleration. With 5 main tracks and a championship mode track called Space Truckin' every track has different conditions including: snowing, thunder and night time. With Championship and Versus mode the game can be done head-to-head, time trial based or just free-for-all.

The funniest thing is having secret cars through the seasons. The Weinermobile, Nintendo Power Car, The N-Logo, Taco, a cart with donkeys and what was just named Museum Artifact.

The Rumble Pak gets some love with this but again the cars are not named but with codes instead. The types look like a Jeep Wrangler, a Camaro, a Viper, a gigantic Hummer, a Ferrari and a McLaren F-1. The mapping mode is far and easy enough to follow through and the graphics are decent enough in spite of all the polygons. The camera will smack into the wall. The screen is letter-boxed for some reason in high def.

Love the Camaro myself!

The entire soundtrack is made up by some half-assed metal band called Grindstone. A lot of guitar and bass into it with a lot of guitar solos. Gives decent enough background noise and you can end up tuning it out if you are not paying attention to it. The engines have different sounds to them but not much variant overall.

All cars have their strengths and weaknesses to each track as well as the weather variables. Several of the cars' handling can be tricky and you will almost certainly hit the wall at 200 mph. A little trial and error maybe 5 to 10 minutes and you get the feel of the car. You really need to try out every car...well except the damn Weinermobile. That just looks goofy. I think my only complaint about this particular racing game was very similar with a lot of those games during that time would always make dead  or barren tracks with no people or creatures around.

With the equal to every racing game available for the Playstations, this game holds its own and if you enjoy the arcade racing style then I say pick it up before the copies are gone.

Invisible Chicken, let go of the steering wheel!!!