Power Drift

Title		Power Drift
Game Type       Racing Driving
Company		Activision/Sega
Programmer      ZZKJ (also coded Super Hang-On)
Players		1
Compatibility	Not AGA (JST & WHDLoad HD fix patches currently in production)
Submission	Carlo Pirri 

Review
This game should be familiar to those of you who owned a C64/Amiga or
played arcade games in the late 1980s. For those of you who didn't, then I
think one can safely say that it inspired one of the more recent Amiga
racing games, Street Racer. So if you like Street Racer, then you'll
probably like Power Drift.

Power Drift is played over 5 different courses with five different
circuits to be found in each course. At the start of the game you can
choose any course and one of twelve drivers to burn rubber in your
off-road buggy. In each race you must fend off 11 other drivers and finish
in the top three to advance to the next circuit. The buggy itself can take
a pounding, only spinning out of control if you collide head-on with a
sign, tree, post or another car. Finish a course and you can take your
pick of the next course and even change driver if you feel the urge.
Complete all the courses and you win the championship trophy. If you bomb
out at any stage, then you get the luxury of five continue-plays.

Ok let's have a look at the aesthetics. The graphics are nicely detailed
and whizz past you at a frenetic pace when in top gear. A layered graphic
effect is apparent. But herein lies one of this game's few flaws. Although
the graphics are pleasant to the eye, the more detailed screens tend to
fly all over the shop at high speeds. Occasionally, as a result, one can
get disorientated and the road can be hard to find in a hurry. For
seasoned players like me this poses no problem and just adds to the
challenge! :-) Novices may be put off however and might want to try
something more pedestrian like Buggy Boy! ;-) Sound is quite average
except for some speech, which fits in well with these sort of games. I was
most disappointed that the great adrenaline-pumping tunes used in the C64
conversion didn't make it to the Amiga. The Amiga ones are a bit tepid in
comparison. Overall, I can recommend this game because it's easy to just
pick up and play and become quite hooked. The only question mark I would
have is over it's lastability, which might be marred by frustration with
the sloppy handling of the graphics in the later stages of the game.



My Ratings January 1999
-----------------------

Presentation	70%
 The game could have been put on to one disk instead of two.

Graphics	68%
 Colourfully presented, but loses big time on screen handling.

Sound		70%
 Tunes could have been better, but partially compensated by good speech.

Hookability	79%
 First few levels suck you in until you hit circuit 4 on course 1.

Lastability	60%
 But frustration may set in because the challenge is made that much harder
by the sloppy handling of the graphics.

Overall		72%
 Could have been so much better with a little playtesting, but still good
fun 9 years on.

Alphabetical list.