First my few complaints: there seem to be fewer tracks on fewer planets offering less variety. Basically you get the water planet (Mon Calimari), the desert planet (Tatooine), the jungle planet (Gamorra, sounds like a venereal disease, and my least favorite world), the planet with one side day and the other night, which was my favorite and maybe one other. Maybe my memroy hypes the PC version into something better than it was, but it seems that there were a lot more planets or at least a lot more tracks. Lack of variety in the tracks means the game is potentially very short, even though replayability is good.

My other problem might seem trivial, but there's no first person perspective without the pods in view. It was my favorite view on the first one for a couple of reasons. 1: the pods obstruct your view even thought they're meant to make a more realistic simulation. It's hard to see the upcoming turns and the guys in your way. 2. Without the pods it really increases the illusion of speed. It just sucked you in and made you feel like you were hauling ...

Other than these two minor complaints, this is an excellent game. There are tons of racers both old and new, including an older (non-Jake Lloyd) Anakin with a redesigned pod. I've already beat the game once with Teemto Pagalies and have every racer through Sebulba ( I think there are more, but I'll get to that later).

The music and sound, as with most Star Wars games) is excellent. Sebulba's pod still makes that cool thumping noise and the John Williams score is well... John Williams. The visuals are very impressive, especially the characters and pods. It seems like the backgrounds are a little rough and blocky at times, but I think that's to improve the frame-rate and you're going so fast you don't have time to stop and look.

One of the cool features you can unlock is the art gallery. In the gallery there are all the pods plus three that I find particularly interesting: a pod for Watto, one for Darth Maul and one for Darth Vader. In the credits there are voice acting credits for Darth Maul and Vader voices. It seems obvious that there is some way of unlocking these pods, but I don't know how and I'm dying to find out. Those Maul and Vader pods look ruthless.

The game is a lot of fun and made me remember why I loved the first one so much. There's something very cool about hitting turbo in a big underwater tube and letting the centripical force carry you upside dwon over your opponents at 600 mph. Or bursting out of one tunnel into a cavernous gap and after some mad hang-time, flying into another tunnel waaay on the other side.

Even without the Star Wars theme this is a strong game that stands on it's own. Star Wars fans or fans of high speed racing should not miss out.

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:


Quality game  Mar 04, 2002 By John W "John"
Options include single events, tournaments, and two-player mode. The tournament is where the hard hitting action is at. In tournament mode, your pod racer works his way through different race courses and earns money for pod upgrades (speed acceleration, cooling, defense, repair, etc.) along the way. The first 2 or 3 tournaments may seem to lack a serious challenge, but that all changes around the 4th or 5th round. It doesn't take much to go from 1st to last by hitting a wall. I've won races by as little as .1 seconds with the top 5 pods all coming within a few seconds of each other. I've also taken a wide turn while in 1st and finished 3rd. The game description says that speeds reach up to 600mph, but I have gone in excess of 700mph. Quality game with excellent graphics and game controlls. Would have given 5 stars, but the 2 player mode just wasn't meant to be... not enough room on the screen to accommodate it.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:


Excellent for all ages, with some drawbacks  Jan 12, 2011 By Ethan R Gallentine
I bought this for Christmas for my kids. We're all Star Wars fans, and we play it almost daily. I'm 33, and I enjoy it just as much as my kids. Racing at 500 or 600 miles an hour--what's not to like?

PROS: It recreates the feel of the Star Wars universe nicely, with opening scenes and even music from the movies as you race. There are enough tracks for plenty of variety, and the feeling of the different "alien" worlds each track is located on is created nicely. The game starts with only four tracks available to race, however, and you must win first place in a number of races in Tournament mode in order to unlock the remaining eight or so tracks. This offers challenge and incentive to progress through the game. The same goes for the pods/characters. You start the game with Anakin's pod and a few others (around seven or eight if I remember correctly), but more than half of them remain to be unlocked. I think there are a total of around 15-20 pods once all are unlocked, with Sebulba's pod being the last one to unlock. (NOTE: For those unfamiliar with Playstation games...A memory card is required for the game to recognize that tracks and pods from previous gaming sessions have already been unlocked)

CONS: The downside is it is quite challenging to win races sometimes. Also, the damage caused to your pod by bumping into obstacles can get annoying. There are no options within the game to change the level of difficulty or turn off the damage, which is really needed when you have young kids playing. My boys are four and six-years-old, and they frequently cannot finish a race because their pods reach the damage limit and explode too quickly. There is a button you can hold for a number of seconds to repair your pod, however. Still, for young kids who just want to race to have fun, it would be nice to turn that damage feature off.

I assume this game was designed for children, so I found it perplexing that I, having several hundred hours of racing games experience on a Sony Playstation 2, could not easily win each race here. I had to attempt certain races several times to win first place. Not a big deal for me--it was a fun challenge. But I'm calling it a downside to the game because my children still have yet to win any race. In fact, it's so difficult that they always come in last place. Furthermore, even when you find yourself racing really well and in the lead, taking every corner with precision, and racing at top speed, somehow the computer-controlled pods will be right on your tail the whole time and as soon as you make a mistake, they will fly right past you. I realize that this keeps the game challenging, but sometimes it would be nice to reap the rewards of building a lead.

CONCLUSION: Despite the drawbacks I've written about, this game is an excellent value. My boys and I have had hours of fun, with countless more to come. Sure, my boys don't like to come in last place every time, but they keep playing it because it's so much fun. If you can live with the drawbacks, the PROs to the game will delight you. I highly recommend this game.

2 of 3 found the following review helpful:


Racer Revenge Rules!  Jul 11, 2002
Star Wars Racer Revenge is a fabulous racing game. You can play it over and over because there are so many characters. Trying to unlock the secret characters makes it even more fun. And when you unlock them, they come with their atributes all pumped up, so you can win every race. You can play any of the levels co-op. That's always fun when you are blowing up your brother's racer. Blowing up other racers. That's a great part of the game. Crashing into people and making their pods explode is even more cool because you get paid for it! The graphics and details are incredible. Racer Revenge is a great game! Definitely worth the money.

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