2.RACE DRIVIN'
                               --------------

This  is  the latest game to come from the people at the Kremlin, i.e.  the
programming  outfit  of  Domark.   It  is  the unofficial follow-up to Hard
Drivin'  and I can say that it is a lot better than the 1st game although I
am not here to review the game, it's the music...

You  have  a  choice  of  either loading up the game itself or to watch the
intro, so I thought I'd load up the intro 1st, it makes sense..

This  intro  consists  of  just  sound  effects/speech  samples  which  run
throughout  in relevance to the on-screen action.  They are, I have to say,
rather spiffing.  The intro ideas/gfx/sfx were all done by Jolyon Myers and
they  suit  the  action  perfectly.   To those who haven't seen this little
intro,  it consists of a rather long animation running in the middle of the
screen (supposedly surrounded by a car-stereo?) consisting of a race on the
stunt  track  between  a  robot  driver  and a human driver (presumably the
viewer!).   The  view switches from car to car, outside/inside views of the
cars etc.  It is very professionally done, and the sound-effects really add
to  the  atmosphere.   They  consist  of  the  usual  mish-mash  of  engine
noises/screech  of  brakes/clunk  of  car  to  car etc.  Another thing, the
samples  aren't  just  triggered at the precise time, they are activated in
relation  to  what happens on screen, i.e.  if the 2 cars go on and off the
screen,  the  volume  of  the engine sound depicts this.  This brings me to
surmise  if the whole kaboodle of samples were done as a Protracker module.
Finally,  we  hear a little bit of speech and a low bass sample.  The whole
thing  is  done  very  well  and definitely gets a grade 'A' from me on the
sound front, good, clean, well thought out samples.

INTRO SOUND EFFECTS ]----       90%

Well, that's the intro out of the way, now onto the game.

The  title  tune  begins  with a roaring guitar sample, followed by a heavy
metal  type  tune.   Heavy metal is fine for this type of game, because the
tunes  are  normally  fast paced and suit the action well.  A definite good
start  there.   But,  now I here the tune....  Uh-Oh, ripped sample time...
Let's  just say that the samples aren't particularly original, and a few of
them  do  not  suit  a  heavy  metal  tune  whatsoever.   There are about 3
different 'sections' to this tune, some better than others, although on the
whole,  the  tune is a bit shoddy and not well composed.  Finally, you know
that sometimes you can tell a 'tracker' module without even seeing it, well
this is one of them, and that definitely is a bad sign...

MELODY]---      40%     Average, not much of a main tune, more like a
                        collection of themes.

FEELING]--      42%     If you want some constructive criticism I'll say that
                        it's a fast paced tune, somewhat lacking in variety
                        of theme, based around tonic chords in obvious chord
                        progressions. A tad repetitive.

SAMPLES]--      28%     Bleurgh! The only original sample I heard was the
                        guitar solo thingy at the beginning but I doubt if
                        that is original, various samples by well known
                        musicians, and some are amazingly old.

ORIGINALITY]--  25%     The only original thing here is the different tunes,
                        which on the face of it, isn't particularly original
                        in the 1st place.

--< OVERALL >-- 35%     Amazingly average. Personally I think, if a company
                        is going to fork out money for music on a game, they
                        should invest in a musician who owns a sampler and
                        knows how to use it. Games are meant to be done by
                        professionals in their field, and I don't know of any
                        professional musicians who 'rip' off everybody elses
                        samples. Maybe one, or two per tune, but not 99% of
                        them, it disgusts me.

Please  forgive the philosophical ending to that review but it's just how I
feel  about  the  state  of the game music these days.  Now, onto the sound
effects.  Oh, my god, it's the ghost of hard drivin' with virtually exactly
the  same  samples,  but  it sounds like somebody's put a wet sock over the
microphone when they were sampling them.

SFX ]----       30%     One good thing, you couldn't hear the loop points!

The  only  other  bit of music on this game I heard was the hi-score music,
and I think that the title music was better than that (hasn't that got your
bass  sample  Bjørn?).   The  only good thing about that was that it was in
tune and didn't last for too long.