Gallop Racer 2004
With new emphasis on the jockey, the best US horse-racing sim gets even better!
Tags: Gallop Racer 2004 Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Oct 5th, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gallop Racer 2004 (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Sports | No | ||
With their newest edition in the “niche hit” series, Gallop Racer 2004, Tecmo felt it was time to give their horse-racing sim a new look and a new feel. As the dust has settled, the new look is a big smash; the new feel, however, may be more of an acquired taste.
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In previous US editions of Gallop Racer, dating back to the series’ first US outing on PSone, you are both the owner-breeder and the jockey. In this year’s model, GR2004, you are the jockey only. If you want to race, you have to build alliances with horse owners who hire you to race their horses. While this interface is fairly straightforward and adds a new level of strategy, before too long you end up missing the feeling that comes with owning the horses; you don’t schedule which races the horses enter anymore – you merely seek to ride them.
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This is alleviated somewhat as the game progresses; if you ride and win with the same horse quite a bit, the owner in essence grants you exclusive license to ride that horse, which is nice. But he still remains the owner, not you. This concept carries over even into breeding; if you earn ownership of a few horses, you can breed them as before, but even those horses are owned by someone else in the game, not you. And if you aren’t highly-developed enough as a jockey to qualify to race your super-horse you bred, don’t expect to get to ride it.
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The shift is dramatic and affects gameplay; while the new challenges are welcome, many long-time fans may end up feeling a bit pushed to the side by the game, almost as if they’re playing a completely different franchise and not the Gallop Racer they’ve come to love. The upside is that the changes make the game more mainstream and easier to navigate; without having to worry about scheduling horses and catching them at the right time in their cycle of rest, recovery and racing, you’re free to just focus on racing as much as possible and honing your jockey skills; the breeding aspect is still there, thankfully.
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Graphically, the game is a mixed bag; when portraying fellow jockeys, owners and other game-characters, GR2004 is substantially anime-influenced, with characters so cutesy you’ll start nicknaming Gallop Racer “Horse Rancher” after Tecmo’s hit monster-breeding sim, Monster Rancher. But once you hit the racetrack, the look of the game gets much more realistic, offering well-models tracks and adding in realistic rain and other weather effects for the first time in series’ history.
The graphic facelift extends to the racing interface, as well; with the new layout, it’s a lot easier to understand when you’re racing the horse out of his style or according to its preferences, as the gauges and such are more intuitively laid out and displayed.
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In an attempt to make the game more college dorm room-friendly, GR2004 now includes a versus mode, including a “best of” series mode and a tournament mode that can manage up to four players. This should help the game become more of a “gaming party” game, but what is sadly lacking is the MIA online mode. While such a thing has been rumored for a while for the Gallop Racer series, and is already a reality in Japan, this year’s US model still stays offline the whole time, meaning that if you’re not living in a college dorm room, non-CPU opponents may be hard to come by.
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Musically, the game is nothing special but there’s nothing really wrong here, either. There’s not a lot of voice work, if any, but for this type of game it’s not a big deal anyway. The racetrack sounds come off well, though. For gameplay depth, there’s a lot more horses, a lot more tracks and more virtual gambling options than ever. And when you unlock a horse’s hidden abilities, the special effects are gorgeous and a highlight of the game, something worth playing to see.
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That said, the general look of the horses hasn’t advanced much since last year; on the bright side, the control scheme is back under control this time out, giving you plenty of control without reducing the challenge it takes to become a regular winner. While those who dislike horse racing sims likely won’t be converted here, if you’re a racing fan there’s no reason why you shouldn’t like Gallop Racer 2004.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ New emphasis on jockey role robs you of a bit of the “ownership of the horse” feeling but adds new gameplay challenges. + Controls are sharper than last year, without diminishing the challenge. + Game interface has been facelifted for better understanding of what you need to do to get the most out of your horse on the track. |
8.3 |
| What Doesn't | |
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— The early going gets frustrating because your jockey is underpowered and can’t get any but the least-desirable horses. — Kinda miss feeling like I “own” the horses. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| While the cutesy people graphics may have you nicknaming this game “Horse Rancher,” after Tecmo’s hit monster-raising sim, the breed-bet-race gameplay has never been sharper. Gallop Racer 2004 fixes nearly everything that may have bugged you in last year’s edition. | |
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Tags: Gallop Racer 2004
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Oct 5th, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
