S.C.A.R.S.

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a game by Vivid Image, and Ubisoft
Genre: Racing
Platforms: PC, Nintendo 64Nintendo 64, Playstation, PSX
Editor Rating: 6.9/10, based on 10 reviews
User Rating: 8.5/10 - 4 votes
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See also: Download Racing Games

Super computers, animals, and racing

If ever there was a time not to release a futuristic racing game, then that time is surely now. With Wipeout 64, Extreme-G 2 and the sublime F-Zero X all competing for whatever spare cash Britain's gamers have got left once Zelda, Turok 2 and a memory expansion pak have been subtracted from this month's pay packet, anything that's less than awesome is simply going to get trampled underfoot in the Christmas rush.

Ubt Soft have decided to brave it though, confident that Scars has the multiplayer battle-racing appeal to capture the heart and minds - not to mention pressie money - of the hundreds of thousands of N64 owners who'll be looking for something different to play as the long nights draw in and the carol singers come a-scrounging.

But can Scars cut it against such heavyweight competition? Did it fill the office with seasonal animal racing cheer? Did it have us clustered around the TV for late night battles at the expense of the latest thrilling goings on in EastEnders? Or did we just go home early for a warming bowl of pea soup and a nice cup of tea? Here's where you're going to find out...

Cars is a game with a dual personality. On the one hand it's a brash, arrogant poser, the coolest guy in town, cruising around in a convertible Merc with the stereo pumping, gold medallions gleaming In the sun. On the other hand, if you look a little closer, you'll see that those gold medallions are just chocolate coins, tied on with tinsel, listen harder, and beneath the thumping beats of Fatboy Slim and the Propellerheads, you might just be able to make out the faint strains of Barbie Girl.

The game is particularly strong on visual appeal. The tracks look about as solid as it's possible for polygon models to get. and they twist, turn, and dip enough to disguise any unnecessary pop-up without resorting to fogging They look nicely varied too, not just between courses, but from one comer to the next, thanks to the large number of different textures used and the amount of trackside detail. The cars are equally convincing, thanks to the nice shiny highlights on them and despite the clunky sprites used for the wheels. There's a good headlight effect thrown in as well which can be dipped or full beam, although it's never quite as realistic as the one in V-Rally.

The problem is that it can all seem a bit superficial. The cars are pleasingly chunky and they look like they've been buffed up with a vat of Turtle Wax. but they've got no real personality The tracks are big, brash, and beautiful, but none of them present anything like the sort of heart-pounding racing challenge seen throughout F-Zero X. Sometimes it's all too easy to tell, when a course is sending you on an awkward 180' downwards spiral, that it's not a cunning gameplay device but an attempt to prevent the camera from displaying too many objects on the screen at once and slowing the whole thing down Okay, so nobody wants a racing game that chugs along when it comes to a complicated part of the track, but perhaps a little less detail in the graphics would have freed the designers to create more 'pure' racing sections - a few tricky S-bends, critical lumps, and so on.

Maybe the technical limits imposed on Hie course design wouldn't have mattered so much if the cars handled more assertively. Some real bite when cornering wouldn't have gone amiss, and the sweeping bends are just begging for something like the famous joystick-waggling turbo turn - a Mario Kart feature which has, uniquely, never been copied by anyone else.

To its credit, Scars borrows plenty of other bits from Mario Kart and Vivid Image's own Street Racer, and it's these moments which save the game from a one-way ticket to Dullsville and make it a reasonable alternative to the likes of Wipeout 64 and Extreme G 2.

First and foremost, the multiplayer game is finely judged and well balanced. There's a catch-up handicap system to prevent anyone from building up too much of a lead, so slower players will find their speed boosted when they drop off the pace. Weapons are chosen by the player, not the computer, so the player in first place can pick up the same power-ups as the player in last - some of them are of little use if you're in front, and others work best when you're in the middle ol a pack of cars. Also, the way the different cats suit different playing styles and abilities is a nice touch, and one which is seldom

Secondly, the solo game is difficult enough to prevent you whizzing through it on the first day or two. The races are always closely fought and the boss cars race an almost perfect race every time, so expert use of weaponry is essential. Once the game has been beaten and all four hidden cars have been collected, there's always the option increase the game speed to Master level, and the time trial mode to add a long term challenge.

And finally, there's the appeal of the spartcly, spangly graphics While the hardware-spanking visuals haven't exactly helped add to the gameplay, at least it means there's always something pretty to look at. UFOs, flashing lights, floaty underwater stuff, and an excellent shark in a fishtank, amongst other things.

Just watch out those medallions don't melt down the front of your nice silk shirt.

Multiplayer

Scars is best appreciated as a multiplayer game. All four players can choose to be the same car, so there are no arguments over who gets to play as the little quick one and who gets stuck with the fat slow one. Actually, fat and slow can be an advantage, as the heavily armoured cars don't lose as much speed when they get shot.

Nippy lightweight cars are for players who are confident of building up an early lead and staying out of trouble, but the cars behind get an automatic speed boost thanks to the handicapping system. We favour the lion and mammoth cars, for their ability to withstand collisions, and the panther for its blistering pace.

Animal Arsenal:

  1. Seeker - Fires a deadly, purple homing streak towards any car in front or behind. The longer you charge it up. the more lethal the purpleness. A real crowd pleaser.
  2. Boomerang - Fires a single shot three times, or three shots together, depending on how much you charge it up. Vanishes very quickly if it doesn't get a lock-on.
  3. Stinger - Fires a crackling blue electricity thing, which sits on the road waiting for a foolish computer car to blunder into it Humans never fall for it.
  4. Bullets - Very handy, and very common. The standard bullet is the best way of knocking the wind out of any opponents following close behind.
  5. Stopper - Two no entry signs, with blue 'leccy in between. Almost exactly the same as the stinger, except it can stop more than one car before it disappears.
  6. Magnet - The last thing you want to run into, as it lifts you off the track for a moment and ruins your race. Deadlier than a FuSoYa fridge magnet review.
  7. Time Bomb - Play pass-the-parcel with the bomb before the timer reaches zero. The trick is to leave it right until the last moment, then pass and.. Bang! Ho ho ho.
  8. Turbo - Gives your either three short bursts of speed or one massive one that'll have you bouncing all over the track. Or, sneakily, two babies and a big 'un.
  9. Shield - Prevents you from firing any other weapons. If you see yourself heading towards a shield icon, slam on the handbrakes pronto. Dumptastic!

Tracks

As you progress through the cup competitions, more of the game's nine courses become available. The later tracks tend to have multiple alternative routes and hard-to-spot shortcuts, and the computer cars aren't limited in terms of whether they choose to take the easiest route or go for the shortcuts on the last lap. To squeeze every last bit of gameplay out of the tracks, they're often repeated with different weather conditions or in mirror mode during a cup competition. You can also select a custom cup, with any combination of the available tracks and conditions you want.

Animal Army

The cars are all based on real, genuine, honest-to-goodness animals, from sharks to mammoths, scorpions to rhinos. There are five available to begin with, and four hidden ones which are unlocked by beating them in an animal-on-animal showdown. To earn the right to challenge one of the hidden cars you'll have to notch up first place in the appropriate cup competition. If you beat the hidden car it'll be saved to your controller pak and you'll be able to take it into the next cup series, time trial, or multiplayer race.

Download S.C.A.R.S.

PC

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
Nintendo 64

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
Playstation

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
PSX

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

S.C.A.R.S. is basically a combat racing game juiced up with somewhat bizarre themes and subplots. The tale goes as follows: Super-intelligent computers run the land in 3000 AD. Out of boredom they create and race a series of super combative vehicles--each with its own animal theme. They call it, Situational Computer Animal Racing Simulation or S.C.A.R.S. for short.

Far-fetched plot aside, this combat racer has some nice features going for it. Namely decent driving playability as well as a deep and detailed 3D appearance. Generous amounts of light sourcing as well as seamless backgrounds helps set the stage for nasty combat racing on eight roiling tracks.

Each of the nine vehicles sports a far-out animal-inspired look along with such names as Lion LK, Tiger Shark and Rhino Roadster. Interesting concept, but when the race is on, all focus turns to grabbing weapon icons and blowing opponents off the track. To accommodate the destruction, nine weapons ranging from homing missiles to road mines are available.

Although combat racing is nothing new, S.C.A.R.S. unique look and gameplay could be a nice addition to the genre. Let's hope the animal rights activists can handle the themes.

  • MANUFACTURER - Vivid Image
  • THEME - Combat Racing
  • NUMBER OF PLAYERS - 1-4

People say:

5

S.C.A.R.S. reminds me a little bit of Crystal Dynamics' Off World Interceptor, as well as Midway's Off-Road Challenge. Neither game was that great and unfortunately neither is S.C.A.R.S. I'm not condemning it completely; I think younger kids will like it a lot. I just don't know if that's a compliment or not. What I do know is that sliding around twisty, bump-filled roads in cartoony vehicles gets old quite fast. The cars themselves are loosely based on exotic animals--you know, lions and other such aggressive beasts who lend their personas well to vehicles of destruction. Kids love beasts don't they? Anyway, that element seems "kiddy," as do all the goofy power-ups that literally litter the courses in great numbers. About every few seconds another set of icons hover in the road waiting to be absorbed. I wish they were less plentiful. Not that power-ups are a bad thing but having them constantly in your face is annoying. Plus it takes your attention av/ay from the object of the game - blowin' enemies off the road! Also, for a racing game the frame-rate is a little slow, especially on multiplayer races. OK, so that's why older players may not like the game. Kids on the other hand will like the simplicity of the gameplay, the morph-type animal vehicles and the bright graphics. So go tell Junior all about it.

6

Having spent a long time with the N64 version, I was expecting this one to suffer a little in terms of graphics. Thankfully, it more than holds its own, even without the fancy lighting effects. Upon further examination it actually seems to be a slightly better game on the PlayStation. The controls seem far more responsive, with powerslides feeling much better here and the music and sound being unsurprisingly superior.

7

When I first played S.C.A.R.S., I wasn't all that impressed. After playing for a while and getting the hang of the controls though, the game started to grow on me. The graphics are beautiful (as nice as the N64 version) and the control is tight. Some of the tracks are a little unforgiving (especially later ones), but the overall design is still pretty impressive. It's not the most original racer in town, but I'd still recommend giving it a try.

7

I've always thought that someone should make a racing game in the mold of Mario Kart on the PlayStation. S.C.A.R.S. comes pretty close, with similar racing mechanics and colorful courses. What brings it down is that it doesn't have the personality to stand on its own. It's not good enough to be recommended over say, WipeOut XL, and it's not wacky enough to dethrone Micro Machines. It's stuck right there in the middle.

Fast-action racing slams onto the N64 with S.C.A.R.S, an entertaining multiplayer vehicle combat game for players of all ages.

Set in the 31 st century when computers rule the world, you race one of nine armored vehicles designed to resemble Earth animals in high-speed contests for supremacy. Each vehicle's specific attributes affect not only performance, but also access to weapons and power-ups like turbos, magnets, seexer missiles, time doitids, ana shields. You can play solo or indulge in up to four-person multiplayer action.

Mario Kart fans will find S.C.A.R.S similar but with a much harder edge. The game's action is fast and furious with enough variety in its tracks and weapons to warrant replay. As with many racing combat titles, the multiplayer duels provide the most fun. If you've run down Mario Kart and are itching for more button-crunching action, S.C.A.R.S scores.

ProTips:

  • Tap the gas to slow down. Brake only as a last resort
  • For maximum impact, withhold your boomerang attacks until you've closed in on your opponent.
  • Jump and twist in midair for tight curves.
  • Jump directly over stoppers or blast them from a safe distance.
  • If you fall way behind, charge up seekers to take out the lead car.

Graphics

Imaginative, well-ren-dcredlandscapes and distinctive vehicle designs deliver pleasing eye candy. Some slowdown and pop-up, however, prevented an even higher rating.

Control

Slick, responsive controls with a manageable load of options make it easy for you to maneuver your vehicle and launch weapons on the fly.

Sound

A pumping house-music soundtrack enhances the speed and action. Engine noise does become monotonous, but it can be turned down.

Fun Factor

Mario Kart clone is a daunting task, but S.C.A.R.S delivers enough variety in the tracks and weapons to make this racer speed to the front of the pack. Its multiplayer action provides the most fun.

OK, answer the obvious question first. What does S.C.A.R.S. stand for? Get this...Super Computer Animal Racing Simulation. Don't look at me like that, I didn't make it up--that's what it's called, OK? Underneath the ludicrous back story this looks like it's going to be an above-average attempt at a racing game on the N64, it's just a shame that it has to have this stupid idea tacked on.

The press stuff we received with the product talks of "the year being 3000 AD" (yeah...we wondered when that would start happening) and that "supercomputers have designed nine hyper-charged vehicles all based around some of nature's most ruthless killers." As you can probably imagine you must take charge of these animal-inspired racers (which are just odd-shaped cars if we're honest) and, well, win races. Once the novelty of driving around in a shark/lion/rhino (!?!)-shaped car has worn off (approximately seven seconds after you noticed that was why the cars look so bizarre), you can sit back and appreciate that this is a pretty snazzy hybrid of the less crappy-looking off-road racing games out there, with a bit of WipeOut and AutoDuel thrown in for good measure.

By staging the whole affair "in" a supercomputer, the team at Vivid Image has managed to come up with a pretty believable way of excusing any pop-up in the graphics. The game renders up the track as a grid before laying across the beautiful textures, so if the N64 ever has any trouble rendering stuff, it can revert back to the grid. Not that this is ever an issue though. The graphics throughout are slick, fast and beautifully rendered.

Effective use of lighting and fancy-schmancy effects have been used throughout with different times of day simulated very effectively along with some seriously good-looking weapons effects. There are nine tracks in all, each with different bells and whistles associated with them and these vary from snow, to light-sourced (red) lava and apparently later on there's even an underwater stage. Not quite sure how the predatory nature of the rhino (I didn't think it was a predator?!?!) will cope underwater-but when I see a final version of the game I promise I'll let you all know.

The single-player game, even in the early stage that we've seen so far, looks like it's going to be quite addictive. Racing to the finish line is obviously the most important aspect of the gameplay, but to help ensure that no one gets in your way the game employs a WipeOut/Mario Kart-esque weapons system. Picking up one of the numerous icons dotted around the track equips you with missiles, shields, weird magnet thingies that slow people down and turbo boosters, to name but a few. You can carry two different weapons at a time-but only use them in the order you picked them up. Once you've got the hang of the controls the game develops that same satisfying feeling you got with Mario Kart when you could take someone out from miles away with a deftly lobbed shell.

As if the one-player game wasn't enough, S.C.A.R.S. also offers a Multiplayer Deathmatch Mode which is still being worked on and refined as we go to press.

In the future, apparently, the world will be run by a group of massively powerful super-computers, who for reasons best known to themselves decided to create and race a variety of unique cars. Each car is modelled on a different wild animal.

That's the story (more or less) behind Super Computer Animal Racing Simulation - or SCARS for the more monosyllabic among us. What this futuristic storyline means to you, the player, is that you get to race nine radically different vehicles over nine radically different tracks. Which can't be bad.

Cut Up Your Opponents!

The cars in the game are based - so the PR blurb states - on "some of nature's most ruthless killers." And seven of the vehicles are modelled on some pretty deadly creatures indeed. There's the Lion LK, the Tiger Shark, the Mantis V-Twin, the Scorpio X-2, the GT Cobra, the Cheetah V12 and the Phantom Panther. However, the remaining two, the Rhino Roadster and the Mammoth 4x4 are hardly based on what you would call 'ruthless killers'. The rhino is a basically a herbivore that, aside from a tendency to charge tourist jeeps that it shortsightedly mistakes for sexual rivals, is a fairly peaceful creature. And the mammoth... well, that was just a big woolly elephant!

These animalistic inaccuracies aside, there's little else that can be faulted in SCARS. The cars are all beautifully designed and each of them has different categories of armour, speed and weapons, making the choice of vehicle an important aspect of each race.

The tracks themselves are excellent. Each has a different theme, ranging from Aztec to underwater and they all contain a number of different routes which give you more freedom in the way that you race.

The PSX version of SCARS was described by some PlayStation rag or other as "Mario Kart for the PlayStation,"but this isn't really accurate. For starters, SCARS is a lot better than Mario Kart. The major difference between the popular plumber's racing game and SCARS is that while the tracks in Mario Kart are fairly flat, the ones in SCARS most definitely aren't. They range over mountainous, winding terrain that gives the whole game something of a rallycross feel. As a result the vehicles handle more like beach buggies than cars, bouncing and jumping around all over the place.

Animal Magic!

One Mario Carf-esque feature that is in the game is the use of weapons.

Various pick-ups allow you to blast, trap and overturn your opponents and of course let them do the same to you. It's also possible to customise the selection of weapons available each race or turn them off completely for a pure racing experience.

There are nine cars in all, although you start with just five - the others must be earned in Challenge mode. The tracks - of which there are also nine - can be played in both normal and mirror mode, effectively giving you 18 different courses to choose from.

Multiplayer mode is excellent. Sadly only six of the nine tracks are accessible in four-player games and the level of detail is slightly lower, but the speed of the gameplay and the smoothness of the animation more than makes up for these losses.

Basically, SCARS is an excellent racing game. It's definitely the best four-player racer for the N64 involving wheeled vehicles and if you want an exciting one-player game with a great multiplayer mode then buy this today!

Overview

If you have been waiting (like me) for something comparable to Nintendo’s Kart-racing style games to come out for the PC, look no further than Ubi Soft’s S.C.A.R.S (Super Computer Animal Racing Simulation). We finally have a seat-of-your-pants, doesn’t-make-any-sense, fun-as-all-get-out racing game that adults will enjoy as much as their kids... and we get to play it on the PC.

The storyline compares right up there with any other "kart" game. It seems that by the year 3000, supercomputers have taken over the world (maybe we shouldn’t have tried so hard 1000 years back to keep them running?). As expected, even supercomputers get bored and turn to "racing" to entertain themselves. Not satisfied with just "racing", they build vehicles that resemble earth’s most feared creatures; the lion, the mammoth, and the shark to name a few.

Once past the, uh, interesting storyline you will find an enjoyable racing game with some pretty exciting visuals. S.C.A.R.S. features nine cars and nine tracks along with nine weapons/power ups. Each car has distinct characteristics and some feature special abilities. Each track is unique as well and can be further modified with different day/night and weather effects. You compete for four cups (along with a custom cup) and even can play head-to-head via a split-screen mode.

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

Gameplay is pretty much identical to games like Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing. You careen around corners picking up special weapons and power-ups that are used to gain the upper hand against your opponents. The result is a fast paced and exciting racing game... with cars shaped liked animals (which still doesn’t make sense to me) but it’s still pretty fun.

System Requirements

Minimum: Pentium 166, 3Dfx or Direct 3D compatible card, 16 MB of RAM.

Recommended: Pentium 200. I Recommend: Pentium II based system (or higher), a good selection of controllers to experiment with (see below).

Recommendations

I could almost define S.C.A.R.S. as Sucky Control And Randomly Slow. For the life of me, I had the most horrendous time getting a controller to work adequately within the game. Analog controllers are almost unsupported, gamepads seem a little unresponsive if not shifty and my system speaker would beep incessantly as the buffer filled while using the keyboard to drive. I finally was able to find one gamepad (out of the four I tried) that worked properly.

Performance was another low spot for me in this game. The box itself recommends a Pentium 200, I would personally never install it on any thing less than a P2. On my P2-450, I experienced random performance hits that left me scratching my head. Even the opening movie is unbearably jerky. Other times the game was smooth as silk. Applying the two patches from Ubi Soft’s web site seemed to make no difference.

Even with the above problems, I recommend this game to anyone who has ever enjoyed games within this genre. I especially recommend this game to parents who would like to find an entertaining game that isn’t too violent and bloody to play with their kids.

Overview

Ah yes, the ever crowded racing genre on the PSX. Everyone is trying something different in hopes that their game will be the next big hit. The makers of S.C.A.R.S have already made one attempt in the racing market with Street Racer. It was not a traditional racer and neither is S.C.A.R.S.

Once again, we find ourselves in the future. It is the year 23000 to be exact. There are nine different supercomputers that rule the world and in order to curb their boredom, they have brought back good old-fashioned racing. Actually, there is nothing really old-fashioned about the racing. You race in the form of an animal and there are weapons and power-ups scattered across the track. This game is not so much about going fast yourself as it is keeping the opponent from going fast. Sound interesting?

Gameplay

When I think of racing, I think of cars or motorcycles or even boats. What I don't think of is animals. Apparently Ubi Soft is going to try to change my thinking, because that is exactly what you race in this game. You race as a lion, mammoth, rhino, shark or mantis, and there are other hidden cars you can unlock. Actually, this may have sounded a little deceiving. You don't actually race as a lion, etc.; your vehicle has wheels and everything, but it resembles this or that animal. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what S.C.A.R.S. stands for: Super Computer Animal Racing Simulation. Does that clear everything up now?

Aside from the fact that your vehicle resembles an animal, one of the things that distinguishes this game from the other racers on the market is the use of weapons. There are plenty of power-ups that you will come across during the course of a race. These power-ups can range from turbo boosts to stopper weapons. See, the name of the game is not always who is the fastest but also who makes the best use of the weapons. You can be behind and one carefully placed shot can mean the difference between second place and victory lane. One thing I thought was a bit lame is that you can only carry two weapons at a time, but I guess that was the same for everyone.

This game really shines in the multiplayer mode. If you have a multi-tap, you can play with up to three other people. The game shows no signs of slowdown even when broken into quadrants. As with most four-player, split-screen games, you need a big TV to really enjoy the detail and it can get a bit cramped. As everyone knows, games are much more fun when playing against friends and this holds true withS.C.A.R.S..

What about the tracks, you ask? Good question. Even though the box claims to have 54 tracks available, that is not entirely true. There are up to 54 different variations on nine unique tracks. There are mirrors of these tracks, night racing, rain and snow. If you add up the combinations you will get to 54. One of my complaints with the game was that the tracks were just a bit too snug. It seemed like just as I was getting up a full head of steam, I would hit some sharp corner and either slam into a wall or have to slow way down. This kind of took away from the racing aspect but on the other hand, it made me think about strategy and how to take upcoming corners.

One of my biggest complaints about the game was that I felt like I was out of control most of the time. The tracks had these sharp corners that I always ended up sliding around way to the outside while the computer-controlled cars hugged the inside and always gained an advantage on me. Each car has a grip rating that is supposed to tell you how well the cars gripped the road, but I found that the cars with the good grip always finished last because they were so slow and the grip was really not that much better.

The other complaint I had about the game was that it really was not addictingly fun. Yes, the multiplayer mode was enjoyable and even the single player mode was good, but I just never really felt like I had to play just one more game. You know the feeling. Just one more game, honey, and then I will come to bed... three hours later. Yeah, I am almost done. I never really had that type of feeling when playing this game.

Graphics

I keep thinking about the PlayStation 2 and how awesome it will be, but the original PlayStation can put out some pretty awesome graphics. After a few races, you will see what I mean. This game has bright colors, detailed scenery and a blazing frame rate, even when playing split screen. This game makes the cartoony graphics of Street Racer look very childish when compared to it. This is another of those games that will allow PSX owners to show off to their N64 buddies (I should have a review of the N64 game soon).

System Features Supported:

1 to 4 Players Simultaneously, Memory Card (1 block), Multi-Tap, Analog Control Compatible, and Vibration Function Compatible.

Bottom Line

In the end, S.C.A.R.S. turns out to be a mildly entertaining game that just lacks the overall addictiveness of other great games. There are not problems that are truly offensive and people who enjoy a good multiplayer game should give it a whirl. If you play your games solo, you may not find this game having enough staying power to keep you playing but it is definitely worth a rental to see for yourself.

Get the Band -Aids ready, 'cause SCARS has arrived!

In the future, apparently, the world will be run by a group of massively powerful super-computers, who for reasons best known to themselves decided to create and race a variety of unique cars. Each car is modelled on a different wild animal.

That's the story (more or less) behind Super Computer Animal Racing Simulation - or SCARS for the more monosyllabic among us. What this futuristic storyline means to you, the player, is that you get to race nine radically different vehicles over nine radically different tracks. Which can't be bad.

Cut Up Your Opponents!

The cars in the game are based - so the PR blurb states - on "some of nature's most ruthless killers". And seven of the vehicles are modelled on some pretty deadly creatures indeed. There's the Lion LK, the Tiger Shark, the Mantis V-Twin, the Scorpio X-2, the GT Cobra, the Cheetah V12 and the Phantom Panther. However, the remaining two, the Rhino Roadster and the Mammoth 4x4 are hardly based on what you would call 'ruthless killers'. The rhino is a basically a herbivore that, aside from a tendency to charge tourist jeeps that it short sightedly mistakes for sexual rivals, is a fairly peaceful creature. And the mammoth... well, that was just a big woolly elephant!

These animalistic inaccuracies aside, there's little else that can be faulted in SCARS. The cars are all beautifully designed and each of them has different categories of armour, speed and weapons, making the choice of vehicle an important aspect of each race.

The tracks themselves are excellent. Each has a different theme, ranging from Aztec to underwater and they all contain a-number of different routes which give you more freedom in the way that you race.

The PSX version of SCARS was described by some PlayStation rag or other as "Mario Kart for the PlayStation,"but this isn't really accurate. FOr starters, SCARS is a lot better than Mario Kart. The major difference between the popular plumber's racing game and SCARS is that while the tracks in Mario Kart are fairly flat, the ones in SCARS most definitely aren't. They range over mountainous, winding terrain that gives the whole game something of a rallycross feel. As a result the vehicles handle more like beach buggies than cars, bouncing and jumping around all over the place.

Animal Magic!

One Mario Kart-esque feature that Is in the game is the use of weapons. Various pick-ups allow you to blast, trap and overturn your opponents and of course let them do the same to you. It's also possible to customise the selection of weapons available each race or turn them off completely for a pure racing experience.

There are nine cars in all, although you start with just five - the others must be earned in Challenge mode. The tracks - of which there are also nine - can be played in both normal and mirror mode, effectively giving you 18 different courses to choose from.

Multiplayer mode Is excellent. Sadly only six of the nine tracks are accessible in four-player games and the level of detail is slightly lower, but the speed of the gameplay and the smoothness of the animation more than makes up for these losses.

Basically, SCARS is an excellent racing game. It's definitely the best four-player racer for the N64 involving wheeled vehicles and if you want an exciting one-player game with a great multiplayer mode then buy this today!

2nd rating opinion

SCARS didn't really excite me, I'm afraid. The different terrains and weird cars are good to look at, but in the one-player game the wide tracks and plentiful weapons don't set the pulse racing. Multiplayer is more fun, but it's not an essential buy.

Futuristic racer with animals and super computers. A missed opportunity.

Snapshots and Media

Playstation Screenshots

Nintendo 64/N64 Screenshots

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