Super Turbo Racing

"Super Turbo Racing" is an extremely simple drag racer with almost no gameplay to speak of. It also doesn't work properly. Why people enjoy drag racing has always been a mystery to me, but maybe it's more about the spectactle and the get-together than the actual act of racing. In that regard, [i]simulated[/i] drag racing makes absolutely no sense unless it's only a small part of a racing game. "Super Turbo Racing" however, despite the name promising something else, [i]only[/i] contains drag racing. And that's a problem as there's just not enough gameplay here to make the game any fun, especially since it's a single-player only title. As expected, you and an AI car race a quarter of a mile on a straight track. Acceleration is automatic, the only thing you have to do is shift the gears at the right time to become faster than the opponent. If that doesn't sound absolutely thrilling it get's better - [i]there's a shift indicator on the screen when you have to shift[/i]. So when the green arrow appears you just tap the shift button and your car becomes faster. Do this five times and A WINNER IS YOU! And that's really all there is. Yes, there are three different tracks, but two of them require you to purchase new cars - and these cars are expensive. To unlock the second track you need a Ferrari which sets you back a cool virtual $500k, but you only earn $500 per race. The third race - with much cheaper German cars - is also locked and I'm not certain it's even available yet as you don't get told you need a German car to race. You get more money from winning on the different tracks but how does that help you if they are all behind a huge buy-in? Oh, but there's another problem: you can't unlock the second event on each track as the code handling the buy-in is broken. Would be an easy fix but there has been no update to this game since release so I'm not holding my breath. The game has exactly zero configuration options; you can't even turn off the sound. You are not even told which key is used for shifting on the keyboard although that's easy as it's Left-Shift or Right-Shift. Visually it's all store-bought assets thrown together and the same goes for the motor sounds. The graphics can only be called basic - there's no post-processing here, not even a skybox. It's all pretty ugly. Even at the low price point I can't recommend this "game" to anyone.