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One day I was thinking about the Project Gotham Racing series and realized no new games have released recently which I thought was odd because it seemed like a popular franchise. I did a little research and found out the developer was shut down some time ago which I also thought was odd considering they released a string of successful games as far as I can tell. I own the first two PGR games but never actually played them so I figured now would be a good time to give them a shot. But my research also led me to the discovery that Metropolis Street Racer is actually considered the first game in the series. Well it’s the predecessor. Developed by Bizarre Creations and published by Sega, Metropolis Street Racer was released for Dreamcast in November, 2000. Metropolis is not your typical racing game. It places a focus on driving well and you’re actually rewarded for doing so.
Metropolis Street Racer is a racing game. There’s plenty of cars to drive and unlock, tracks to race on, and game modes to select from. But what makes it different is the Kudos system. It’s not all about winning. It’s about how you drive. It’s about driving well. Progression in Metropolis is based on how many Kudos you earn. The better you drive, the more you earn.
There’s four game modes to select from; Street Racing which is the meat of the single player, Time Attack, Quick Race, and Internet. But before you can jump into any of these modes, you’ll need to own a car. You have a Garage with a limited number of slots. You start with three but can unlock more in the Street Racing mode. You choose a slot and select from of any of the unlocked cars in The Showroom and then you have to complete that vehicle’s challenge. Each challenge requires you to beat a set lap time with the chosen vehicle. I found some of these to be extremely challenging, requiring perfect or near perfect runs. That includes perfect turns and some of them can be a real bitch.
Metropolis features a rather large selection of vehicles. Before challenging one, you can decide on the roof type, color, transmission, window tint, and you can turn on or off ABS. If you complete the challenge, you can change the registration or license plate and decide what the roof type will be during the day, night, and in the rain. Unfortunately, your Garage can’t hold a lot of vehicles. This means once it’s full, you have to discard vehicles to free up slots for new ones. Furthermore, discarding a vehicle costs you a percentage of your Kudos. What’s worse is, you’re limited to these vehicles across all single player modes. I think it adds an interesting layer of challenge to the Street Racing mode but not being able to drive any unlocked vehicle in the Quick Race or Time Attack modes seems unnecessary.
The Street Racing Mode is where you unlock vehicles, tracks, and earn Kudos. There’s twenty five chapters, each with their own events to complete. These include Hotlap where the objective is beat the goal time, Timed Run where you have a set time to complete a certain number of rounds, One On One races where you race a single opponent, Street Races where you race against multiple opponents, and each chapter ends with a Championship where you race multiple opponents in rounds for points and winning these always results in a new vehicle. There’s also the Challenge event type which can include one of multiple objectives like overtaking a certain number of vehicles, exceeding a top speed, and beating an average split speed.
Kudos are earned primarily by driving well and meeting the event targets. The amount of Kudos you earn are based on a number of things like how well you drive, your finishing position, and the time you’re given just to name a few examples. You must meet the target of the event to earn Kudos but that doesn’t necessarily mean winning. For example, a Street Race may only require you to finish in third. You’ll earn more Kudos for finishing in second or first but to complete the event you only need to finish in third. Some events are labeled as “Special Races”. This means if you complete the event and meet the “special” conditions, you’ll unlock something.
I wouldn’t call Metropolis Street Racer a simulation racing game but it does have a nice blend of arcade and simulation gameplay. If you try to drive as if you’re playing Mario Kart, you’re not going to do well. Each vehicle handles differently and you can view their stats. One of the ways the game determines how Kudos is earned is by driving well, relative to your vehicle’s Car Performance Factor, abbreviated as CPF. For example, if you do well in a vehicle with a CPF rating of 3.0, you won’t earn as much Kudos as if you did just as well in a vehicle with a CPF rating of 2.0.
So you might be wondering what “driving well” actually means. Well for one thing it means not crashing. Not crashing into barriers or colliding with other vehicles. Doing so results in a penalty or loss of Kudos. You also lose Kudos for quitting an event which I find to be very annoying. If you finish an event with no penalties, you earn bonus Kudos. You can accelerate, brake, and drift or power slide and power sliding is a great way to earn Kudos. A good power slide will result in a message on the screen indicating you’re earning Kudos. You want to drive fast to win but you need to be careful. That means power sliding into turns or braking before making sharp turns. The ultimate goal is to drive as fast as you can around a track without crashing. When you do crash, a penalty message is displayed. And one nice little feature is that you can customize these messages.
As you progress through the Street Racing Mode, you’ll unlock additional events, chapters, garage slots, and circuits. And you’ll want to do the best you can in every event. If you don’t have enough Kudos to unlock the next event, you’ll have to replay through previous events and try to earn more. Metropolis makes you work to progress. You have to earn things. Now The Kudos you’ve earned by playing through a single event multiple times don’t stack. If you replay an event, you risk losing Kudos. So if you earned four hundred Kudos the first time but only three hundred the second time, you’re stuck with three hundred Kudos for the event until you can do better. What’s cool is that you can adjust the event targets, or in other words change their difficulty, and making them more challenging can earn you more Kudos. It should be noted that you do have the option to practice these events before taking them on.
Eventually you will earn your first Joker. You can only hold a certain amount and can use or play one before starting any event. Jokers double the amount of Kudos earned and lost so it’s like a risk and reward system.
Overall, I like the Kudos system because it adds a whole new layer to the racing. You not only want to win and set record times but also drive well. It makes you think about your driving skills and will hopefully encourage you to try and do better every time you play. Because of how the Kudos system works, the Street Racing Mode can take you a while to get through. However, you can exploit the system by grinding for Kudos in Hotlap events, allowing you to unlock new events and chapters very easily. You select a Hotlap event that requires you to set a record lap time. Beat the lap time before finishing the final lap and then find a good stretch of road for power sliding. Just drive back and forth and keep power sliding. Five minutes of doing this can earn you thousands of Kudos and if you use a Joker, you’ll earn even more.
As for rubberbanding, I’m quite certain it is present. No matter how well I would drive, opponents were never too far behind me. But most of the time, I never felt like the AI was cheap. I never struggled to catch up if I fell behind and if I drove well and didn’t make mistakes, I could usually overtake most opponents and maintain my position. The only time I questioned the AI was during One On One races. They seem to blaze around the tracks and if you’re not doing so well, they can lap you.
In addition to the primary game modes are other little sub-modes. Before challenging a vehicle, you can test drive it and view an exhibition race. Quick Race lets you set up a race on any unlocked track and Time Attack comes with its own sub-modes where the goal is to set record times and back in the day, you could take on the records from the World Internet Rankings. You can also race against any ghosts you saved to your VMU.
Metropolis features over one hundred tracks to race on spread across three cities; San Francisco, London, and Tokyo. Each city features only a few areas but with a ton of track or route variations. The tracks are one of the greatest things about the game. Not only are they well designed but each one is based on actual real world locations and the environments were meticulously crafted to look as realistic as possible. You will race in different weather conditions like mist, fog, and rain and the game uses real time which is based on your system time. However, this does come with a downside. If you play around the same time every day, that means you’ll only race in these cities at the same times of day which can be a problem in any Special Races that require you to race during a specific time period.
Each city comes with its own radio station which adds to the atmosphere of the game. Each station features its own set of songs and fictional ads created for the game. You can even create an in-game custom CD with your favorite songs. Most of the songs are cheesy with lyrics that are downright amusing but there are some jamming rock and jazz tunes. After about an hour or so of playing, you’ll start hearing the same stuff over and over again but the whole radio thing is still a nice immersive detail. Another neat little detail is that when you drive through a tunnel, you’ll hear static on the radio.
Metropolis Street Racer is easily one of the best looking Dreamcast games I have ever played. It’s the environments in particular that stand out. I had read an article that stated the developers used actual maps and took thousands of pictures to reference so the cities would look as realistic and accurate as possible. Everything ranging from the textures to the lighting looks great. Sure, I noticed some pop-in here and there and there’s a lot of jaggies but for the time this came out and hardware it’s running on, Metropolis is a great looking game. These are some of the best urban environments I have ever driven through in a video game. Not just because they look so good but because of how they’re presented, the atmosphere, and the immersive details. You’ll race passed storefronts and structures and you’ll see cityscapes in the backgrounds. You’ll actually see some real-world brands and advertisements. On the audio side, you’ll hear engines roar and a lot of skidding. As for the performance, I didn’t encounter any bugs and only saw the frame rate dip once or twice when the screen got really busy.
I had a great time with Metropolis. In fact, it has become one of my favorite racing games on the Dreamcast. The Kudos system elevates this from being a good racing game to an amazing one. The Kudos system basically makes you earn everything and adds an extra layer of depth. You have to work to unlock things and it makes for satisfying gameplay. Earning Kudos can become addictive. Trying to make perfect turns becomes addictive. Even if you exploit the system, you’ll still have to work your way through the chapters. Metropolis offers a lot of content that should keep you occupied for a very long time. I do have issues with some of the design decisions. The big ones being the limited garage slots, not being able to quickly restart an event, and losing Kudos for discarding cars and quitting an event. But I found it easy to get passed these things because the racing is just so much fun. Plus, it’s a very atmospheric game and the presentation is phenomenal.
I would absolutely recommend Metropolis Street Racer to fans of racing games. It plays great, it looks great, and adds an interesting twist to the typical racing game conventions. It’s fun, challenging, atmospheric, and includes a ton of content. Definitely check it out.