The world loves radio control models. Kids play on the streets with their cars, failing miserably to do donuts, and keep on crashing them so have to run after to put the cars right, and even TV shows based upon creating "robots" and fighting against each other are around. Games based upon racing cars have been around for ages too, many involving the simulation of said RC cars. Human logic has not said why simulations of RC cars, that cost the same as a car from the shops, are so popular, and thus the world will never learn why this is.

Re-Volt is an RC game, where all the cars have suddenly got intelligence and start racing each other without human intervention (Hence Revolt = Re-Volt. It’s almost funny, but WATT I was thinking was something more POWERful. Please kill me). And so, being able to control one of the cars, we are indeed contradicting the idea of lack of human control already. Not a good start.

The levels, and even the menu system, are great to glance at. All the settings for each track are almost perfectly made. Everywhere looks like it’s a place that could actually exist in some form in real life (The educational museum, the street, the ornamental garden, the wild west place, the Titanic), yet also appear in such a way as to, not only imply the childlike air of playing with RC cars, but also give what can only be described as a slightly "Chucky" style atmosphere (Going towards toys with a mind of their own again!). Many surfaces also seem to have been polished tremendously well beforehand. It’s as if Mr Sheen flew by on his duster like in the adverts, and made everything mirror-like.

Controlling the cars on the track is extremely similar to real life RC – bloody hard to play without making mistakes! Clip a wall, and you could end up turned around, or flipped. Go up a ramp awkwardly, and the flipping continues. It is almost as if you must drive the car where you DON’T want it, and it goes perfectly along. After a long while, driving becomes easier, and you don’t hit things as much.
But this won’t help you. Oh no, this will not help you one bit. For you see, Acclaim, in their stupidity, thought that because so many people like Mario Kart, that they should try their own version of weapons in Re-Volt. And they did. And then the game became unplayable. It wasn’t enough for the developers to make a game that’s hard to drive, but to add ways to stop the other cars, and for them to stop you, is sheer lunacy. Weapons ranging from homing fireworks, electrocution and shockwaves to balls, bombs and oil slicks can be picked up and misused. When you are racing along, you just pray that this Russian roulette of your opponent’s weapons do not send you back to 8th place. It is a near certainty that you get hit or affected by weapons in the race, and these are almost as bad as the steering and the easily flipped vehicles. All of these make every race a lottery as to whether or not you finish in first or close to first place.

One hell of a let down, and all because of copying Mario Kart.

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