0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bravo Air Race

        

Bravo Air Race also known as Reciproheat 5000 in Japan and China, and just Air Race in Europe is an action arcade flight racing game. The game was developed by Xing Entertainment and Metro Corporation and published by Xing Entertainment and THQ.

The game released first in Japan on the 31^st of July 1997, with the North American release of the game coming on the 30^th of September 1997. The European release of the game was in the December of the same year. In addition the game also received a re release in Japan as a part of the Xing Maruyasu Series, the also released as a part of the JamPack Vol 2 released in the US in 1997, the game released exclusively on the Playstation

Notable People who worked on the game, Satoshi Kijima who worked as a 3D Programmer on the game, worked on Bust A Groove in 1998 as a Game System Programmer before moving on to the Gran Turismo series. Kijima worked as a Support and Tools Programmer on the series before moving on after Gran Turismo 6. Most recently he worked as a Battle System Programmer for Pokemon Sun and Moon.

Bravo Air Race is a flight racing game in which the player chooses from a selection of real world classic aircraft and races them around varying courses. These planes include P-51 Mustang, P47 Thunderbolt, Spitfire, Messerschmitt BF109 and the F16 Falcon along with seven other aircraft. The games intro features footage from the 1997 Reno Air Races and planes such as the T-6 Texan and T-28 Trojan, these planes however are not present in the game.

Course wise while they do vary with Canyon, Snow Land, South City and Mountain this is all you get to choose form in Bravo Air Race. While the game does have a couple of unlockable aircraft it does not have any unlockable courses, with the four you start with all you get throughout the game.

While traversing each of the courses the player will need to watch out for arrows as well as the announcers commentary which will signal when your need to turn, dive or climb to make your way through the mediocre selection of courses.

The game features a variety of aircraft each with their own stats ratings, this stats are max speed, acceleration and mobility, these a stats are displayed as both a number and colour bar on the aircraft selection screen. For example the P-51 Mustang has a maximum speed rating of 607, an acceleration rating of 90 and a mobility rating of 44.

During the course of the race addition speed can be gained by picking up red balloons, these contain an S inside of them to give your plane an extra boost of speed, however hitting anything even slightly will result in your aircraft slowing down significantly, this also applies to hitting other aircraft as well as slowing down the other aircraft.

The game also features two other pick ups the first is a D pick up, this pick up is best avoided as it will cause your aircraft to suddenly slow down, this is similar to slamming on the brakes in a car racing game. The third pick up is a T pick up, this will add five second onto the overall countdown timer.

The actual races are all run over 3 laps of the course, each of the races has a decreasing timer, with the player needing to pass a checkpoint in order to increase the remaining time, completing a barrel role will also increase the time remaining by 2 second, barrel roles can be done by hitting the shoulder buttons, L1 and L2 to roll left, while R1 and R2 roll the plane right.

Movement of your aircraft is done with the D-Pad, the game sadly does not support Analogue control, so this is your only control method, speed can be increased and decreased, to increase the aircrafts speed the X button is used, while decreasing the aircrafts speed can be done with either the Circle of Square buttons.

When in a race the player has the choice of two view points, the first is a third person behind the plane view. When in this view your lap time will be displayed at the top left of the screen, opposite side of the screen is the players current race position.

At the top of the screen in the centre you will find the remaining time left, below your race position will be your best lap time, while at the bottom right of the screen will be your aircrafts speedometer, with the aircrafts speed shown in hundreds with a needle showing how fast you are travelling.

The second view you can choose from is a firstperson cockpit view, the information at the top of the screen remains the same, the only difference is the bottom part of the screen which now shows the cockpit, with speedometer and four other instruments In the cockpit, including an altitude meter.

The game features three modes of play, the first is the single player mode, this mode you select your course and aircraft and attempt to win the race, once completed the player will be able to record their initials for the race time, the game will then show the player the top five best race times for the different courses.

The single player mode has not kind of progression of competitive element, with the single player mode consisting of just single races with the players only aim to record a better time of the leaderboards, rinse and repeat on the four courses on offer.

Once you have set the best time at each course a text screen will appear saying, Congratulations! you are champion and you have a groovy partner and name one of the aircraft in the game a cutscene of the plane will follow as will one of these for each of the aircraft in the game.

The game does have two additional modes of play to choose from, a time attack mode, with is basically the same as the single player mode but without other aircraft to race. The second mode is a 2 player split screen mode, where you and another human can race against each other, not other AI aircraft are involved in this mode.

Critically the game was mostly received pretty averagely with one exception on either end of the review scale, with the game peaking at an impressive 89, but at the same time dropped down to a below average 40 from one critic. As usual though we will start with the best of them, an 89 rated review from French publication Consoles Plus.

The reviewer for Consoles Plus finding the over all presentation of the game to be spectacular, with a beautiful overall look to the game. The reviewer found the overall gameplay to be fast and fluid, but they did have some issues with clipping.

The reviewer found the games sound and atmosphere to be nice, with the sound effects in the game do a not bad job but are not transcendent either. Overall the reviewer found the game to be a lot of fun with Bravo Air race a game they will certainly go back to.

Following that initial high review score the game too a significant dive to the next one, with a 72 rated review from German publication Mega Fun. With the reviewer finding Air Race to be an innovative and quality racing game, with the reviewer finding that once you have familiarized yourself with the lethargic controls you will find your self very happy as you manoeuvre through crevices and skyscrapers.

However the reviewer found that for a solo player there is not much motivation to sit in the virtual cockpit more often, with no extra features and a lack of analogue support hurting the game. They did continue by praising the games 2 player split screen mode, with the reviewer calling it a pleasure due to the clean graphics on offer.

Next up is GamePro (US) who rated the game at a decent 70, with the reviewer finding the game graphics to be adequate, but suffer from recurring breakup, which hampers the realism and effectiveness of flying. The reviewer continued by saying, Bravo Air Race is fast moving racing fun that is worth at least a full-fare rental.

NowGamer are next up with their above average 68 rated review, with the reviewer finding that after a few hours playing the game, that there is not quite enough to keep you coming back for more. The reviewer continued by commenting on the likes of Rage Racer and Formula 1 ’97, which keep you coming back again and again because they make you feel more involved with the environment.

They continued by saying, perhaps it is because you’re on solid ground and can feel the car squealing around corners, but the underlying feeling you will get from Bravo Air Race is one of Boredom, especially when you realise there are only four tracks in total.

For the next review we head back to France and the 60 rated review from Joypad. With the reviewer finding the game be original in its concept, with a generous number of circuits and planets. However the reviewer found the game to be fast and jerky when the screen Is overloaded with textures, with the graphics on the whole rather coarse.

The reviewer also found the clipping in the game to be really badly managed, the reviewer also found the multiplayer split screen on offer only allowing you to compete on a couple of tracks. Concluding the reviewer found the games concept to be an interesting one, and one that deserves better than this.

We have another 60 rated review up next, this one comes from All Game Guide who found that Bravo Air Race could have been a great game with a little more attention devoted to increasing the games replay value. With the reviewer critical of the lack of courses on offer, they did find the game gave you a good sense of speed though.

Dropping down to an average 50 for the next review which comes from GameSpot, with the reviewer finding that Bravo Air Race resembled THQ’s old quality standard (minus a movie or television tie in), with it being a decent premise that results in a mediocre product. The reviewer continued by saying. If you like flying games, Bravo Air Race is a good short term thrill, but you’re better off saving your money

The final review which comes from IGN find the games score fall into the below average range, with the reviewer rating Bravo Air Race at just a 40. The reviewer found the idea of racing planes through narrow chasms and cities to be a good one, a tad implausible—flying planes through tight holes low enough to bump your head on, it could make a fun arcade racer, the reviewer said, could because Bravo Air Race although it does follow the premise, is so flawed as to render it un-fun.

The reviewer continued by saying. One of the major problems is pop-up, in a game like this where you are constantly scanning the horizon to judge when to start turning, the less pop up present the better. Unfortunately developer Xing has ignored this, making it impossible to judge any upcoming turn, and repeatedly slamming into walls.

The reviewer also found the environment textures don’t help either, with them all seeming to blend together, making it tough to tell where the walls are when flying through a tunnel, again we are back to slamming into the walls.

Concluding the reviewer had the following to say. And, even if you did find yourself enjoying the game (I doubt it, but anyway) there's no circuit mode. You can only race one track at a time. Unless you fancy crashing a lot and being very frustrated, avoid Bravo Air Race.

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 unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of Bravo Air Race, you will be looking at just $1 for your copy of the game from Gamedude. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of the game from Gamedude, you will be looking at an outlay of $5.

Next we head to Retrogames.co.uk where sadly we don’t find the game listed for any of its titles, so we will quickly move on to eStarland.com. Here we do find the game listed, however at the time of writing the game is currently out of stock.

When the game is in stock it has a usual price of between $2.48 and $4.95 for a used copy of the game depending on the quality. At eStarland there is a trade in for the game, with eStarland offering up to $1.50 for a complete copy of the game. This price will fluctuate with a disc only copy of the game worth just 45 cents at trade in.

Lastly we have Amazon.com where we find a decent supply of the game listed, we find two very good condition copies on the first page of listings, these two copies are both priced up at $6.98. However these two copies do not confirm their completeness.

Another copy this time in good condition, with a professionally cleaned disc does confirm the inclusion of a manual but nothing about the case and covers, This copy is priced up at $7.49. The first confirmed complete used copy is on the second page of listings, this copy comes in very good condition and is priced up at $9.51.

A second very good condition and complete copy is also available a couple of listings down for $9.58. With a third and fourth very good condition copy available for $13.51 and $13.76 respectively. If you are wanting a better condition used copy, then a like new copy can be picked up for as little as $14.54.

If on the other hand you prefer your games to be new copies, there are currently only two on the market at Amazon.com. These two copies will also set you back a significant amount of money, with the current cheapest on offer priced at $106.85. The second copy on offer is priced at a couple of cents more at $106.87.

Written by

P J Gibbon