You know, I'm glad they included "racing" in the title. It's kind of a subtitle on the case and disc, so when I saw just "Mag Force" I thought I was about to play some sort of shooting game.
But instead we have a racing game, a futuristic racer originally published in 1999 by Crave. For those that may not remember, Crave was also the publisher responsible for the first game I reviewed on GOTBP, Shadow Madness. But we can't really use that for comparison, a traditional RPG and a futuristic racing game are about as far apart as two games can be. In doing some research, the most similar game I found was something called Killer Loop, it's also a futuristic racer, also published by Crave and also released in 1999. It's almost like it's the same game. Wait a minute...it's not almost the same game. It IS the same game.
That's good, because there's literally nothing else interesting about Mag Force Racing. It's about as generic a racing game as you can get. Of course, that doesn't mean its bad, I've certainly played a lot worse. But it just doesn't do anything to make itself stand out from the crowd. The vehicles are average, the courses are average, the control is average, the sound is average, only the graphics pass mediocrity, and even they aren't that great. It all leads to an experience that, while not necessarily annoying or frustrating, is very boring. It's not just boring when you press start, even the menus are boring. Even the way the game is structured is boring.
What exactly does that mean? Well, there is no grand prix or tournament mode or anything like that here. All you have are menu options. You select a vehicle, course, either one or two player and then push start. That's it, that's all you do. It makes each race feel like its own, separate thing and also kind of makes it feel like you are just playing for nothing. This can work in fighting games, but it doesn't here. Even if the game had circuits or grand prixs or whatever, it would make the game feel more substantial. There are actually quite a few things to unlock here, but there is no indication of what or even how to do this. When you boot up, say, Mario Kart, you figure that beating the 1 player modes is how you unlock stuff. But here, it doesn't even feel like you are playing for anything at all.
And that's unfortunate, because there really isn't a lot of of stuff available from the jump. There are only about five vehicles and five tracks, which really isn't very much. The tracks are visibly impressive, but their design isn't that interesting and all of them feel sort of same-ish. They aren't particularly long, they would actually be a decent length in a normal racing game, but since there are so few tracks it doesn't feel like enough. At least the vehicles play differently and the stats seem to actually matter. The fast cars feel faster, the light ones feel lighter, the ones with better turning actually feel like they have better turning. That's the saving grace that pulls this game up from the dregs, at the very least the vehicles provide some variety.
The control is fine, everything does what its supposed to do and its fairly responsive. Its a little difficult to activate the magnets, but they weren't all that useful so it didn't feel like much of an issue. The sound is pretty solid, the music definitely fits the motif and atmosphere. The graphics are probably the best thing going here, they are smooth and clean, if a little uninspired. It may not be all that interesting to look at, but its technically well done an its clear a lot of time was spent here.
The racing feels a little bit slow, especially for a futuristic racer. I'm not a huge racing game person, but the turning in this game feels off and the power sliding is very strange. Using the magnets to climb on the walls and ceilings was a cool idea in theory, but its rarely worth doing and its usually better to just stay on the course. The levels offer the occasional jumps and rolling hills, but they are far to rare for a futuristic racer. Play F-Zero and then play this and you'll see exactly what I mean. There are weapons as well, Mag Force uses a system most similar to Diddy Kong Racing. You get an item off one pickup, and you can upgrade that item up to two more times. It's usually a good idea to just use them right away, the upgrades aren't anything special. Honestly, the weapons on a whole are just underwhelming.
And that's the best way to describe Mag Force, underwhelming. It isn't bad by any means, but it's a little too slow and plodding for a futuristic racer. I really don't have too much more to say, there just isn't a whole lot of content here and what content there is doesn't warrant tracking the game down. I've heard in reviews that this is the kind of game that you have to spend a lot of time with to get good. But who the hell wants to get good at a random racing game from 20 years ago? I get why people take the time to get good at competitive fighting games or FPS', but what does being the best damn Mag Force Racing player in the world do for you? Maybe unlock a couple of tracks? I've also heard the PC version is far superior to this one, as it runs faster and provides a greater sense of speed. Honestly, that plus a little more content would push this into borderline hidden gem territory. But I have to give a rating based on the version I played, and that version...
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