When tasked with the job of reviewing Grand Prix Rock’n Racing my immediate thought was ‘oh not another racing game’ but then to my delight I discovered that this particular game wasn’t specifically trying to be a racing simulation. So I take my place in the driver’s seat with better expectations than originally anticipated.

The game takes on the style of the olden day arcade racing games in the form of the isometric view kind. It starts you out with a basic car and the start of a brand new season, each race taking place as you expect around a variety of tracks. Taking a turn on each track to get as high a finishing position as possible to try and accumulate the most points out of all the racers by the end of a season. When you complete a season, it’s onto the next one.
 

Perfecting each track is the key to succeeding in this game as one little mistake can be very punishing sending you all the way down in the position field, luckily you are able to practise each track before going to the big race. The isometric view of the track doesn’t lend itself too well in judging when each bend is about to hit, especially racing down long straights. There is a map view which always shows your position but in the long run I found it more distracting when looking at the main track itself in the heated showdown trying to navigate the corners.

Trying to bring the game to a modern day audience, the game adds on elements such as car upgrading and real world physics to the traditional arcade style mix, in there lies the game’s ultimate downfall. Each race you complete rewards you with upgrade points, where you finish in the field dictates how many of those point you receive. Using these points you make upgrades to the car, speed, acceleration, breaking… you get the idea. For the game styling itself on the arcade past it doesn’t feel like an arcade racer until you’ve upgraded the car a bit which can make it difficult to get into starting out.
 
Further frustrations are added by the real world physic elements as if you are not careful you can do things like spin the car coming out of a corner, lift the car going over the curb which sends your car flying out of control and even simple things like brushing against another car can have dire consequences, all of which is hard to judge and easy to do. In trying to find enjoyment in an arcade racer I find myself feeling like I would get better results playing a real racing simulator… at least I would be able to judge the pending turns better.

With only a single player season play and a multiplayer mode it doesn’t lend itself to variety, however if you are a racing game freak looking for a challenge then you will find that challenge here in this game, if you looking for a pure fun element then you will only find frustration with this game.
Check out the video review:

 
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