Speed Kings (PS2)

Speed Kings has you riding a bike through various levels that increase in difficulty, while your machinery gets faster and faster as well. It sounds familiar, and so it is... up to a point. UK developers Climax have tried to combine the arcade racer feel with a veritable melting pot of other ideas. Does it work? Read on to find out...

In the mix

Don't try this... err... on the road, kids!

The guys at Climax must have thought really hard about what they liked about racing games, and decided to cram it all into one game. This has resulted in an experience that borrows the sense of speed from Moto Racer, the oncoming traffic, the boost system and the spectacular crashes from Burnout 2, the fighting element from good old Road Rash, the controls from Midnight Club, the trick system from MX Superfly and the license test from Gran Turismo. This makes for an exciting cocktail in theory, but the end result is not really up to scratch. Speed Kings does many things right, but it never really takes off in the way it’s meant to.

Options aplenty

The bikes in the game are copies of actual models.

The game offers plenty of ways to get your need for speed satisfied. You can begin with the little license test, which is just a small tutorial in disguise, and then move on to the rest. There are four single-player modes and a multiplyer option as well.

In single player you can drive single races, time attacks, racing meets or the Grand Prix. Most of it works just like you’d expect, perhaps with the exception of the racing meets. These consist of three-race meets, in which you must earn enough points to advance to the next meet, in addition to opening up new levels and earning new bikes. This is done by winning races and completing the so-called “respect challenges” that each race has on offer. You get three chances to earn enough points in each meet. This works well and it’s quite a challenge to unlock all 18 levels and 22 bikes. There is no online multiplayer here though, which would have suited the game. However, there’s still some fun to be had with a friend or two.

It could have been something special

Man, this is what I call a tight spot.

I wish I could like Speed Kings more than I do, because it really is quite fun to play. It’s just like the game tries to do far more than it’s actually capable of and that hurts the overall impression.

The racing part is well made and it feels great to dodge oncoming traffic or whack your opponents if they get too cocky. It’s fast, and easy to control but it’s also unfair. You’ll often find yourself racing along in style, just to crash into traffic or objects seemingly popping out of nowhere. And when you crash, you really crash. This looked awesome in Burnout, but it doesn’t work as well here. And the gameplay shouldn’t depend so much on luck. There’s seemingly no telling when you suddenly find yourself hugging the tarmac, because something suddenly bumped into you and this is nigh on inexcusable.

Furthermore, the trick system could easily have been left out, and it probably should have been. It is sort of fun to do tricks, but it all feels bolted on in a hurry to make the game more “extreme”. In the end, this just causes Speed Kings to fall somewhere between the sub-genres of arcade street racing and extreme motocross and that is not a valid cocktail in my opinion. Some elements do work, however, such as the cool jumps and the places where you need to lay your bike down and slide under obstacles. These are things that work in a high-speed racing game, whereas the ability to do handstands at 200 mph does not.

Furthermore, as you execute tricks and other stunts, you earn points for your powerband meter (*cough* Burnout! *cough*), which will provide a sudden boost of speed when charged. This looks and feels cool enough, but again, it’s been done and it’s been done better.

Not a pretty package

Speed Kings often looks decent enough when its running, but screenshots reveal the simple, repetitive polygons and low-res textures.

At the end of the day Speed Kings does deliver its fair share of adrenaline kicks, but that certainly has nothing to do with the actual graphics. I kept feeling like I was playing one of my old Amiga racing games, although it does look better than those.

Back in the day, developers would have all kinds of great ideas, which the hardware wasn’t quite up to realizing fully, but you could certainly feel what was being attempted. The same feeling is present in Speed Kings, which is a pity seeing that the PS2 could easily have produced better results had the designers tried harder. The level of detail in the game is embarrassingly low, most likely to create a better sensation of speed. Although this has succeeded very well, it needn’t have been that extreme. Everything is awfully blocky and all textures are low-res and smeared to look at. The level designs are quite inspired though, but this cannot save the visual side of the game from the curse of mediocrity.

And when it comes to sound... well... for starters, this must be the most uninspiring game music I’ve heard all year. The effects are all right though, but sonically this is no marvel.

Try before you buy

Don't drink and drive...

Burnout 2 is obviously what Speed Kings aspires to live up to, but unless you’re a fanatical motorcycle buff you should choose the former instead, seeing that it is superior in every way. However, Speed Kings does possess its own distinct charm and on some points, it does come close to greatness. Let’s hope that UK-based Climax Entertainment will learn from their mistakes and deliver a sequel that fulfils its potential, just like Rockstar recently did with Midnight Club II.

But if you spot Speed Kings in the bargain bin one day I heartily recommend giving it a try. It’s a solid piece of entertainment, we’ve just been spoiled by all the other superior racing titles currently available.