Hover Ace

The track has a few twists and turns in it, with some minor obstacles dropped around bends. Navigating through the hazards is not that difficult. The real task lays in blowing your opponents away, while keeping your own vehicle moving rapidly and avoiding their fire.

The name of the game is Hover Ace Combat Racing Zone, a release from Big City Games and Strategy First for the PC. The game is pretty much a straightforward combat/race title. You get a vehicle, compete against other drivers and if you are successful you are given rewards that allow you to improve your racer.

However, when you start, you are the new guy on the block and subject to getting banged all over the place. This is like being a game of bumper cars in which you are the one getting bumped and not able to dish it out. What determines who gets banged? Well, it doesn’t seem to be based on a lead car. On several occasions, the host racer was in the lead by half a car and nudged sideways. Thinking two can play at that game, the same tactic was tried against an opponent. However, the results were pretty much the same. Instead of nudging, the host car was nudged.

Hmm . . . well, maybe more armor is needed. And a gun or two can’t hurt. Ah, just stumbled onto one of the essential elements of the game. This isn’t about propelling a craft that bears some similarities to Star Wars racing machines at breakneck speeds around a track; this is about propelling that craft around that track and relegating your opposition to the status of burning wreck on the roadside.

Some of the game features include four difficulty levels, ranging from easy to impossible; 16 tracks which progress with the gamer (you need to complete one track to unlock the next); six racing modes (including championship, quick race, time limit checkpoint race, energy cell - like a game of keep-away, last man standing, and time limit); 15 hover crafts, 10 types of weapons; nine computer opponents; 19 types of equipment; and open game tracks. You can move basically anywhere you wish. The drawback being that you do have to make the checkpoints which relegate the freewheeling useless in the majority of the events.

The game is a mixed back graphically. As you wheel around the track, not literally, you can turn into the sun, which does some nice flares in your view of the game. The shadows are also well down, and the smoothness of the rendering is very nice. However, get off the track, either by trying to take a shortcut, or through getting bumped, and you might hit a boulder. These are some of the obstacles and will slow your progress down. However, the rendering looks out of place with the rest of the game. The rest of the elements have a lifelike quality but the boulders look very two-dimensional is a richly three-dimensional world.

The game’s sound does nothing to enhance the gameplay.

This is a joystick driven game. A wheel could not be configured to work with the title. But as the steering and combat elements are somewhat simplistic, the effect might have been akin to using a sledgehammer to drive a picture frame nail. It is simply too much weapon or an inappropriate tool for the job.

The game promotes nine computer-controlled opponents with consistent characteristics - well, that means they are predictable. They do the same thing over and over again. The game has increasing difficulty levels, not necessarily evolving enemy AI.

Hover Ace Combat Racing Zone is somewhat simplistic in nature. You drive, you do well enough, you get new items to improve your racer. The game does have track variety and challenge. It is not, however, the type of game that will have you glued to your computer hour after hour. It is a slightly above-average title that will provide some entertainment value. Just do not expect the visual racing impact of titles like EA’s NASCAR series. This game is a little skimpy on the aspect of fast machines, and the style of combat takes time to get used to, as well.

This game is rated Teen for mild violence.

Gameplay: 7.4
The game has load times, and moves seamlessly once in a race. The unfortunate part is that the gameplay doesn’t seem to move at the pace that the vehicles are moving. These vehicles are blazing around the track, but the game seems to move slowly.

Graphics: 8.1
The graphical elements are very well rendered. Lighting and shadow effects are outstanding, and the game moves well. The environments have some ups and downs. Some elements are very well done, and then others - like boulder obstacles - are sharp-edged cardboard cutout-looking things that seem out of place.

Sound: 6.9
The sound of vehicles hitting one another sounds like someone banging away from the cargo hold of a very large ship. Add to that, the repetitive cry of ‘checkpoint’ and a few insults if you fail to win the race and you have a sound track that is barely average.

Difficulty: Medium
This game is quite routine. The challenge lays in lining up a target, and in bumping your opponents off course. There are four difficulty levels to challenge almost any skill level.

Concept: 7
Hover Ace has a simplistic interface and is a basic joystick game. If you do not have the right program, you will not see the movies. Unfortunately, the game does not allow you to load the codec program from the game disk because that program does not come with the game. One nice aspect, though, once the game is installed, it does run without the CD in a drive.

Overall: 7.3
The game with some well-done aspects contending with some that are not as well done. The AI seems simplistic and locked into certain trends. The graphics are, for the most part, well done, but the sound track needs something to really stir the blood (a better musical score might have helped). This is slightly above average title.