Welcome to the world of (New Star) Grand Prix! You are a famous racing driver who is destined to be the winner of this season! Um, that is if you actually win the races, keep your bosses, friends, and pit crew happy, and don’t lose all your play money.
New Star GP provides an added dimension to the usual “here are the tracks, now race for me!” attitude of most racing games. For each track you have a week to practice, Saturday is qualifying time and then Sunday is the actual racing. So what is the actual driving part of the game like? Good…
You’re going to need some skill!
The game is like a more serious version of Micro-machines, with a top-down view while you control the car with the arrow keys. What really took me by surprise is how you really have to learn the tracks. It is important to approach certain turns and if you do it wrong you may have to slow down, brake or worse, crash! There are certain things you can do to help. You can choose between having a boost which will allow you to accelerate faster but makes your car heavier. Tightly monitoring your fuel level helps; Less fuel means you’re lighter, so you’ll go faster, but not for as long. And if the weather is bad, change the right tires as soon as possible!
So practice is important to get all these things right.
In addition to driving, you have the option to bring your friends or pit crew to the casino to keep them happier. You don’t have to play any of the games at the casino, but if you’re feeling luckier, you might win a bit of spending money.
One of my favorite points of the game is that you can buy cars with the money you earn and drive them on the actual track! You don’t have to do this and it takes up one of your practice days, but it’s a lot of fun.
My main complaint about the game would be the lack of multiplayer, aside from the fact that you can compete via track times online, there’s no actual racing against others. The only other drawback for me is the track editor, which I found quite troublesome to use. Since there were no cross tracks (or bridges) available, I couldn’t recreate the high speed test track either! I cried.
Otherwise, it’s a lot of fun and a worthy buy for any fan of grand prix or racing in general.
Score: 73 out of 100
Final words: Top notch gameplay, a must for any GP fan!