Apex
- February 21, 2003 10:50 AM PST
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Apex isn?t quite a next-generation racing game?but it does come close.
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Oil Is Thicker Than Water
The unique story is further enhanced by graphical and audio freshness. Whether burning rubber with your own creation or with cars from top licenses like Aston Martin and Toyota, the sense of speed while whizzing around each track is absolutely dizzying?it truly feels like you?re traveling 100-plus miles per hour. But the sharp visuals don?t stop there. Each fictional track is superbly designed to fully test your driving abilities. Sharp U-turns and long straightaways are evenly spaced out on exciting tracks that run through mountains, cities, and beaches. In fact, the track variety beats any current racing game out already. The sounds, albeit sparse, are impressive, too. Low engine hums and rings of downshifting echo brilliantly throughout an entire race.
Moving Violation
The huge sore point to this otherwise fabulous racer is its unbalanced controls. After racing in about half of the competitions, you?ll realize that all of your homegrown cars feel the same. The culprit is the limited adjustments that you can perform on your car: driving style, gear setup, and down force alignment. Unfortunately, that?s not enough to drive well in the racing field. Another gripe: wacky collision physics. When you bump another driver from behind or on the side, cars don?t skid out of control like they would in real life?instead, they sometimes fly in the air in front of you or gain more acceleration to drive way ahead of you. What the??!
A Comfortable Ride
Despite the questionable controls, Apex can still hold its own with the rest of the racing pack. Apex is worth the purchase if you?re in need of a solid racer for the Xbox.
