Original Release: Core Design, 1994, Sega CD
Other Releases: PC / 3D0 / 32X (1995)
One of many cartoony kart racers released immediately in the wake of Super Mario Kart, BC Racers draws on the Chuck Rock universe and was the first of the genre on a console CD system.
BC Racers (Sega CD, Core Design, 1994)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
After the original Super Mario Kart dropped, everyone with any kind of cutesy cartoony property to leverage was scrambling to throw together a knockoff kart racer … even the people who made Chuck Rock, as this game demonstrates. Chuck and a collection of his fellow People of Caves race it out in prehistoric style, but add a bit to the mix by borrowing the melee strikes to the left and right of the Road Rash games. Karts can also eventually be destroyed and taken out of the race permanently with enough damage, and that’s a premature end to the festivities if it happens to you.
All this takes place in a very basic Wacky Wheels-ian engine, not bad but not even as refined as the first Mario Kart (braking is virtually pointless and power sliding is not a thing at all here). It does look fairly nice though. The actual racers are whatever, they kinda look like the art style was copped directly from the B.C. comic, but there are some genuinely nice backdrops and the cutscene art is very reminiscent of the stuff in mid-90s LucasArts CD-ROM games like Full Throttle and the Star Wars joints. The soundtrack is pretty disappointing, however. I remember Chuck Rock having a fun little soundtrack, but this one doesn’t do much more with the CD audio than a collection of ambient noise.
The play control is simple but decent enough; the game’s big weakness is in being unbalanced. Each character has their own set of stats and specialties, but it’s tilted too much in favor of combat. Specifically, the Endurance stat. Withstanding the inevitable tons of dings and bumps from attacks and collisions is critical since there is no opportunity to heal and you’re out of the race if you get blowed up. The faster but softer characters are at risk of being broken to pieces after only a lap or two.
There is very blatant rubberbanding, but at least on the middle difficulties the game isn’t all that hard so long as you avoid the most fragile characters. I chalk that up to the simple handling, there’s really no advanced driving technique to learn here. You don’t even need to bother learning to power-slide corners like you do to make it in the upper reaches of the first Mario Kart.
Given this was released nearly two years after Mario Kart and on CD-ROM, it would have been reasonable to expect it to take a step forward. Instead, it’s more like the PC knockoffs like Skunny Kart and Wacky Wheels. Yet, the team that designed this went on to create Tomb Raider as their next game!
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