Spirit of Speed 1937 (Dreamcast)

 If you've heard of this game, it's probably due to its presence on various "worst Dreamcast games ever" lists. However, it doesn't look too bad in screenshots, and it's a Dreamcast racing game, so I assumed it couldn't be as bad as people say. Plus, the old timey setting was a pretty appealling gimmick, so I gave it a try. And at first, it seemed like everyone was being too harsh on Spirit of Speed: it's a little clunky, but initial impressions are of a mediocre racing game that might provide a little bit of fun, if you're into the setting.

 

Then, you notice how long the races are. Either the track you're on is incredibly long, with lap times of multiple minutes, or you're expected to drive around the track ten or twenty times. Either way, most races are projected to take over ten minutes, sometimes significantly longer than that. On top of that, despite the game's title, you never fel like you're going fast, even at top speed in the game's fastest car. So every race has you slowly trundling around a track for a long, long time. At least the cars and tracks themselves do look pretty nice. 

 

Despite the ludicrous length of the races, I did want to finish at least one of them, in the interests of fairness. I'm not sure if it's actually possible to place first in the races, because while you're always limitd by the tchnical limitations of these old timey cars: slow accelleration, inability to take corners at any kind of speed, and so on, it seems like there's always one opponent who faces no such limitations, able to just shoot off at the start of the race, never to be seen again. The rest of them are just like you, though, so once you've left them behind, you'll likely spend a lot of time in second place, all alone with most of your opponents getting left further and further behind you, and one opponent getting further and further ahead of you.

 

However, I was never able to finish a race, as every time, without fail, something would happen to prevent me from doing so. Sometimes, the game would suddenly crash. Sometimes, the car would inexplicably stop accellerating for no obvious reason, meaning the race had to be quit via the pause menu (because this wasn't some kind of deliberate game condition that makes you instantly retre from the race). One time, I paused the game, and it just wouldn't unpause no matter what. So as well as being poorly designed, it seems that Spirit of Speed 1937 is also incompetent on a technical level.

 

I approached this game with an open mind. I think I've been clear in the past on the subject of how little patience I have for received opinion, especially when it comes to games that are supposedly universally reviled like Spirit of Speed is. However, in this instance, I have to admit that the mob is right: this is a game that fails at everything it tries to do, on almost every level. The only positive thing I can say about it is to repeat that it does look pretty nice in screenshots. It's just unfortunate that to take those screenshots, someone has to actually (attempt to) play it.