Interface

Real Wheel

I point this out in most any racing game I review, but in case you haven't been blessed with the pearls of my wisdom, I'll once again bestow them upon my faithful readers. (You unfaithful readers, skip this paragraph. I hate you.) The only way to really play a racing game is with a wheel. Re-Volt supports them, and you should have one. The keyboard simply won't do when you want to make subtle turns - utterly crucial in Re-Volt because of the cars' propensity to skid out. A joystick is analog, which helps, but it's also very important to have quick center-snap, which most joysticks I've used won't re-create.

We actually used a nonstandard wheel device for our testing (though Re-Volt does support standard racing wheels): the Ultra Racer PC, by InterAct. This bad boy looks similar to the controller one might find for an actual RC car; a small (2 inch diameter) wheel on top and a trigger on bottom that goes up and down. Pull back the trigger and off you go! It has very fast center snap, and it's easy to move the wheel slightly, so this controller was ideal for the game. Any sort of wheel, though, will help control the cars in this game.

What IS that thing?

Leavin' tracks

Real Twitchy

The physics in Re-Volt are quite accurate - maybe even TOO accurate (insert conspiracy theory here). The cars don't have much weight, but go fairly fast. Because of this, it's easy to lose control of them. All the cars have different weight, acceleration, and top speeds which affect their handling, but none of them are particularly easy to drive.

The difficulty in controlling the cars makes Re-Volt quite a hard game. It takes much longer than, say, Need For Speed to get into; your first races will be spent losing control, crashing into walls, and generally figuring out which cars handle best for you. Heavier cars are easier to drive, but even still, trying to, say, land a jump and turn at the same time will often cause you to spin into a 180, costing you precious time.

Cruisin' the frozen foods

On thin ice