Genesis ~ Kawasaki Review

Overview

Yet another old 16-bit racer game where you get to accelerate, steering left and right down a seemingly endless straight piece of road on a journey to the unknown horizon that you'll never hope to reach.

Oh boy was I wrong! But except for that part about steering left and right.

Gameplay and Realism

This game is meant to be a realistic motor-cycle racing simulation and it rightly gets the job done. You start off by signing a contract for the Kawasaki racing team to race on the Kawasaki Championship consisting of 14 races. Qualifying is carried out before the races to determine grid position out of 16. All of the tracks in this game are closed circuits racing against 15 other bikes! This game uses the same racing engine as Domark's F1 series of games, which means that you're not going to get the typical 16-bit racer crap where you just steer left and right without a sense of direction into nowhere. In this game, you know you're going around a track, you know where you are. The moment you start to accelerate, you'll automatically pull of this cool wheelie and feel the speed! The bike realistically swerves left and right into corners, it almost feels spot on.

9.5 out of 10

Graphics

The graphics are based on the old plain coloured polygon engine that's primitive looking these days. The frame-rate is quite choppy and there isn't a lot of detail in the background, making the atmosphere seem so dull and lonely. But for a 16-bit game, these shortcomings are so easily forgivable. Switching on the turbo mode widens the view and nicely increases the frame-rate.

4.75 out of 5

Sound and Music

The menu music is a cool rocky techno beat. The ingame racing has no music, but does have a realistic screeching motor-cycle engine sound.

5 out of 5

Playability and Versatility

For gentle bends, rather than tapping the d-pad to make it through, all you need to do is set the angle of the bike and the game will automatically go through the corner nice and smoothly for you. Nice!

Something you have to question is how you seem to skid when you turn hard, kind of like power-sliding. I think if you skid at high speed, the bike loses control meaning you'll fall off. One thing that really got me annoyed was colliding into things head on. You just come to a complete halt bouncing a little and will have to wait for your bike to float back onto the track to get going again. It can get so frustrating, I'd rather see the bike get smashed all over the place with the driver flying through the air! That would have been so much more fun!

3.5 out of 5

Options and Longevity

There aren't many game modes. The main one is where you race through up to 14 of the tracks in the Kawasaki Championship saving via very long passwords. The other bike manufacturers aren't even real, so it almost seems meaningless. Or instead you can take on the single 8-hour endurance race at Suzuka, Japan. You can also race one on one with another player or the computer.

3.5 out of 5

For: realistic, race against 15 other cycles, colourful, screechy engine sounds, plenty of tracks.

Against: skidding, lifeless atmosphere, unrealistic head on collisions, not many game modes, other manufacturers aren't real, can't use other cycles.

KAWASAKI!!!! This is one awesome motor-cycle game. The game's engine for a 16-bit is highly realistic and runs impressively. Get your butt onto a Kawasaki and KAWAZAKAI the Ge-Forces all night long!