0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Andretti Racing

    

Andretti Racing is a racing simulation using the Mario Andretti license the game was developed  High Score Entertainment and Stormfront Studios, the latter would go on to develop the Nascar series. The game was published by Electronic Arts and released in October and November of 1996 in Europe and North America.

In Andretti Racing the player has the choice of two racing disciplines, Nascar or Indy Cars in an arcade style racer, with a total of 16 tracks to race around. The main mode of the game is the career mode in which you drive in both Nascar and Indy car you can progress by driving well with bigger and better teams taking notice

Derek Daly and Bob Jenkins provide running commentary for the races, also a feature outside factors can effect your race such as pit crew mistakes and mechanical issues, in addition to career this there is an exhibition mode for one off race, the game also has a driving school where you can learn the skills to become a better Nascar or Indy car racer, the game also offers 2 player split screen and 4 players with a link.

Racing game no story or story mode present

The game was generally well received with the games best review scores coming on the Sega Saturn and PC versions of the game with GamePro (US) giving the game a 90/100 score they were critical of the graphical discrepancy between the Saturn and Playstation versions however.

The Playstation version of the game did have the more mixed bag of review scores with a high of 85/100 from German publication Video Games with their review blurb saying In addition to Formula 1, Andretti Racing is definitely one of the best PSX racing games of the year, above all, it is also suitable for those who are not Formula One fans and do not constantly run around in Michael Schumacher underwear.

Fellow German publication Mega Fun rated the Playstation version a 84/100 two points higher than their score for the Saturn version of the game, Gamezilla praised the good combination of arcade and simulation aspects mixed together and praised the responsive controls in the 83 rated review, Game Revolution also scored the game at an 83/100 and had the following to say, It does find itself under comparison with the newly released Grand Prix II (for the PC), which if anything shows an even finer attention to detail. However, for the Playstation you will find none finer... yet.

At the other end of the review scores we find Computer & Video Games UK who scored the game a lowly 1/10 sadly this review has been lost to time so their criticisms of the game are unknown, a big jump up to the next lowest review score for the game which comes from Absolute PlayStation who scored the game a 6.25/10 again this review has been lost to time.

GameSpot in their 66/100 review which was the PC version had the following to say, In terms of options and career paths, Mario Andretti Racing takes auto racing to a new level of video game realism. Consulting with Andretti himself through much of the design process, the developers at EA Sports created an excellent user interface with loads of options. The game offers both Stock Car and Formula One racing, which means junkies from both sides of the track can get their fill. An innovative career system allows players to compete for an entire season of harsh racing, and with over 16 different tracks to take on, replay value is guaranteed.

They were not without criticisms though, they were critical of the games graphics comparing them to other EA titles like Moto Racer and Need for Speed II which were far superior they also had to say. A couple of minor features are strangely absent from Andretti Racing: There's no way to see a race-ending crash in instant replay (the race ends immediately), you can't view replays from the cockpit of a competitor's car, and there aren't any options for setting weather conditions or even the strength of your opponents, multiplayer options were also lacking in their opinion.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where this game is clearly quite common with a trade in price of just 5 cents if you are looking to buy a copy of the game from Gamedude you are looking at an outlay of around $2.

Retrogames.co.uk does stock the PC and Saturn versions of the games price at £15 and £9 respectively, however at this time they do not stock the Playstation version of the game so we move on to eStarland.com. Who stock multiple versions of the game including the Playstation version where a used complete copy of the game will set you back $3.38 which is around £2.58, you can also trade in your copy with eStarland paying $1.50 for a copy.

Heading over to Amazon.com where we find a plentiful supply of the game available with disc and disc and case only copies available for around the $4 mark a like new copy of the game at the time of writing this is also available for the cheap price of $3.95+ $0.99 for shipping.

If you are in the market for a brand new copy of the game this is where prices start to increase with a brand new copy starting at $17.29 this is fulfilled by Amazon and comes with free shipping on orders over $25, of you are looking for a copy that does not involve Amazon your cheapest offer currently is $23.99 + $4.99 for shipping.

  

Written by

P J Gibbon