An Annotated History Of The Cruis'n Series, Part III...
By ferrarimanf355 2 Comments
Hey there, as promised, here's the third segment of the award-winning Annotated History Of The Cruis'n Series. If you missed the other two parts, go here and here. Leave comments there if you have something to say.
The gameplay itself remained mostly unchanged from Cruis'n World, but with a few neat additions and levels added on. The first was the keypad system. Each dedicated Exotica
The game would also feature licensed cars for the first time in the series. Real cars included the Plymouth Prowler, Chevrolet Corvette C5, Ford Mustang SVT Cobra, Jeep Wrangler and Hummer. There were also a few other cars, including a Nash Metropolitan lookalike in the picture to the right, and a semi, and a car based on the Hemi 'Cuda (which was odd, since Chrysler licensed the Prowler and Wrangler for use in the game- they couldn't go and let them use the 'Cuda name as well?) Some cars also allowed the selection of the driver avatar, including two chicks, a cowboy and an alien.
The levels themselves kept the Exotica theme well. There's one that takes place in Las Vegas, another in Hong Kong, levels in Korea, India, the Sahara Desert, Holland, Ireland, Alaska (CLAP FOR ALASKA, LISA!), and then it gets weird, with levels in Tibet (a racing game in Tibet? That's original...), Atlantis (under the sea and all), a dinosaur- inhabited Amazon, and the surface of Mars. Each one shows off moments of background detail that was made possible with the new hardware.
Here's some classy lady playing the game, specifically the India level using the Corvette.
Of course, as with the other games, there would be ports, and two of them came a year or so after release. The N64 port, developed by a studio called Gratuitous Games, added in a few things and removed others. Added in were some of the things from the N64 port of Cruis'n World, like more cars, speed boost upgrades, and more tracks. Each level had four tracks: short, long, circuit and drag. Four-player multiplayer made it in as well.
As for what was removed, the licensed cars were gone, replaced by generic names- the Corvette became the "Invader", for example. And the graphics... well, since the Zeus II is much more powerful than the N64, you knew the graphics would take a hit. Here's some footage to show why it didn't look/feel the same. This is the Mars level, and trust me, it looks MUCH cooler in the arcade version. Graphics aren't everything, I know, but the muddied N64 look kinda ruined it for me. It was playable, but it was a playable eyesore. At least the music was carried over from the arcade version.
And then there were the handheld versions. Yes, versions. This is the Game Boy Color version, by Crawfish Interactive. They tried, but it was just clunky.
And then there was the Game Boy Advance version, Cruis'n Velocity. It was developed by the now-defunct Graphic State Games, and from what I heard, it used the same game engine as their GBA first-person shooter Dark Arena. Judging from the footage below, I think that sounds about right, since it looks like a racing game built on the Doom engine. I don't know why the cars explode like Pintos, either. The music, at least, sounds good by GBA standards. I've never played this one, if anyone has, leave a comment and tell me if this one is good or not.
And so, with that in mind, the Cruis'n series comes to an end. Or does it? Over the weekend, I'll talk about the Fast and the Furious arcade games, and why they wear the Cruis'n heritage well.