Apex: Xbox Game Review
April 6th, 2003 7:32 pm

The Quick Take: One of the better racing games I’ve ever played. Having newly acquired Apex for the Xbox, I was eager to see what this sim could do. I’m a big fan of racing games and have played a million of them on the PC. Being a new Xbox owner, this was my first foray into racing sims on the Xbox. I have not played Project Gotham Racing, which Taranis swears is hot sex.

Apex overall is a great game. Very entertaining and fast paced. It’s easy to get set up and racing fast. Like most racing sims, there is the quick race option that allows you to hop in a car and get zooming.

The graphics are astounding. So much rich detail fills the screen, much of it to be overlooked, I’m sure. In the distance you can see planes landing at nearby airports, balloons in the air, waterfalls in the distance, and payment that looks more real than… real pavement. We don’t score high enough on any game developers radar to score any screenshots, so just trust me.

Others have commented on the weak soundtrack. My question is, why are you listening to the soundtrack on a racing sim? The first thing I do with a racing sim is turn the damn music off. It’s a waste. Racing sims are about the growl of the engine, the screetch of the tires, the grinding of the gaurd rail as you scrape it, and the sound of you whooping it up after a good race. That’s it. Screw the soundtrack. If you want a good soundtrack, go by the soundtrack to the movie Glory.

The AI is impressive. They are tough, but not to tough. Passing is difficult, but not to much so. It seems to auto adjust to how well you are racing. You won’t get left in the dust by the leader, and you can’t leave the pack in the dust either. I always hated the fine adjustments PC racing sims often made you do. You often had a scale from 30 to 100% to adjust the strength of the opponents. You would set it on 94% and you would run rings around the AI. Bump it up to 95% and the best you could finish is 17th. Apex seems to have found the magic medium to make worthwhile.

Dream mode is what makes this game tick. Most standard sims have a career mode that is simple keeping track of you many races you win in a championship season. Dream mode in Apex puts a story behind it, to make it more interesting. You have just purchased a car shop and want to build your own line of cars. Racing help you spread interest in your car company and helps you build the cash to make more cars. There is alot of nice details that make it fun. As you become more successful, your company grows, the shop gets bigger, and you can see the cars in stages of development. You can even choose what types of cars to develop. It’s not overly complicated to take away from what the game is - a racing sim - but there is enough depth there to make it worth it.

The races are only a few laps long. But the tracks are long enough that each race is full of excitement. It’s a nice medium where you don’t have to worry about pitting, yet it’s easy to get a quick race or two in, even in dream mode. It’s a perfect balance in my book.

A few faults
The faults are few and minor, but they do exist. One, that bugged me the most of all of the, was there is no typical through the windshield view. There are an assortment of views, including the hood-top view which is the closest you can get to the through the windshield view. At first I wondered if it was a good thing they omitted that view, but it’s such a standard in racing sims that they should not have overlooked it. Overall, it’s not critical though.

The damage is, well, for display only. You can bang up against walls and competitors. You can nearly bang your car to shreds, but it has little to no effect on how your car handles. Again, with some racing sims, the damage effects have been too sensitive. You barely tap a wall and you’re race is over. Here, you can run headlong into a wall and bounce off. It’s handy while you’re still getting used to the controls and the hang of the tracks, but having a damage option would have been nice.

If you are into racing sims where you can spend an hour setting up the car beforehand, this game is not for you. You only get the basics here. You can set downforce by choosing low, medium, or high. Same with the gearing, and a catch all called driving style. Personally, I prefer it. I never liked the NASCAR games where I had worry about break bias, spring tension…. bah! I want to race, not dick with torsion.

4.5 out of 5 llamas.

Posted in Video Games by Mark
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Jetteva
April 15th, 2003 12:52 pm

I’ve been playing Apex for a few weeks now and I have uncovered a problem with the game. I am about 75 races into it when I was watching a replay of a game.

After every race you have the option to watch the replay. I assumed it was just a flat recording of some sort, but half way through the replay my car started doing some wild things. It swerved of course, hit the wall then started racing in the other direction, only to stop, then begin doing a few donuts and hit the wall again. Since this did not happen during the actual race (I finished in second), I had no idea why it would sudden do that in the replay. Very odd indeed. I’ll be paying attention to this as the game progresses.

Cosbysweater uncovered a problem also. He reached a certain point at which he could not get past do to game freezing. He found a few fixes for it on the internet, which all boiled down to clearing the xbox cache. This can be done in a few ways. You can go to the xbox memory setting and delete the saved portions for Apex, but you will loose whatever saved Apex games you have (and all the cars/tracks you have unlocked). In PC terms, you are essentially uninstalling the game and reinstalling it. Or, you can buy a memory card (going for about $25 now). Backup your saved games there, then clear the xbox memory of Apex files.

I think there are a few other ways to clear the cache. Cos tried it and lost his Apex settings (and two saved dream mode games) and has to start over.

If you notice any problems issues, we’d love to know about it.