If, like me, you were concerned that you hadn’t played the first Super Woden GP, put your mind at ease, as Super Woden GP II is a completely standalone game. And, at risk of slight spoilers, a pretty enjoyable one too!
Yes, Super Woden GP II is a racing game from Vijuda and Eastasiasoft, promising to take us back to the early days of racing games of the early ’90s, where playability and fun were more important than the latest whizz bang graphics.
But in a world where Forza Motorsport exists, is there room for a little racing game to set the world on fire? Well, maybe gently smouldering would be a better analogy…
In Super Woden GP II you are given a series of races to compete in. You’re also given a car and need to try your best in order to come out the other side as a winner. Motivation is pretty much all there is to Super Woden GP II.
That’s fine, but this game commits the cardinal sin of a racing experience, at least in my book. You see, those behind it haven’t paid for any licences to use real car names, but have then gone right ahead to create a pretty detailed model of the real cars. For instance, my Soop Avenger MkIII is a Ford Capri, there are no two ways about it, and there are blatant copies of the Subaru Impreza, Toyota Supra JGTC (right down to the distinctive red, green and white livery) and the list goes on. Even the title screen shows a car that is clearly a racing McLaren F1, in the famous Gulf livery, but this is not acknowledged anywhere in the game.
Other than this, Super Woden GP II looks okay. It is an isometric racer, where the cars race diagonally around small circuits and it all looks great. It moves at a very fast pace too, and never have I seen a suspicion of slowdown. The smoke from the tyres as you drift around corners, the sparks as you hit other cars, the various different landscapes as you race about – from a wet speedway track in America (I assume) to a dusty rally in Kenya – all work well, as do the weather effects such as rain and snow.
Of course, the actual racing is only half the story, as there is a huge amount to do away from the racetrack, and an intuitive map interface allows you to access all the bits you will need. It reminds of the map screen from Gran Turismo 2, which is no bad thing. All the car dealers are there, along with icons for the other things you can do – ranging from arcade racing through to the Music Room, where you can, believe it or not, listen to the music on offer.
Speaking of the music, this is all in keeping with the style of the game and fits the mood perfectly, but sadly the engine noises are flat and one dimensional – all variations on the “bee in a tin can” sound that we were so used to back in the day. A bit more variation would have been nice. Still, all in all, the developers have made a decent fist of the way this game is presented.
Now, on to the gameplay, and there are a lot of different aspects to it that come together to form the game. Starting with the simplest mode, Arcade, we are taken off to a completely separate interface for this section, and it is classic Arcade gameplay. It’s here where we find a rally stage that we need to complete in a certain time, and if we don’t, we lose a credit and have to start the section again. Lose all three credits and we have to start the whole thing over again, so the challenge is there!
The rally stages also make an appearance in the main area of Super Woden GP II, under the heading “Go Race”, which does what it says on the tin. You can choose from regular races, the aforementioned Rally events, Endurance events and even Time Trials if you want to learn the tracks – and this is recommended. The juxtaposition between racing diagonally and still steering around corners feels awkward at first, but it soon becomes second nature, and the controls all work really well.
Of course, you wouldn’t expect Super Woden GP II to give you access to everything straight out of the box, would you? Well, you would be right and as we race, we earn stars; varying amounts of which are needed to access new events. And as these new events have limitations on not only the type of car that you can use, but also the power of the car, there is a good tuning bit of the game to go at – even including the “oil change” and “wash car” features that I have seen in a certain PS2 racing classic…
Tuning a car obviously helps with the races, but you need to win races to get the credits to buy the parts, so a cycle is set up. And I for one am here for it. It doesn’t count as grinding if you are having fun, right?
So, all in all, Super Woden GP II is a good racer that harks back to the glory days of arcade racing. The challenge in the later stages is intense, while the chasing of credits and stars to get new events is agreeable in and of itself. Personally, I hate that real car names aren’t in the game, but that doesn’t really affect the action on offer.
