Daytona USA

Written by Ryan Smotherman  on May 17, 2001

Review: DDDDDAAAAAYYYYYTTTTOOONNNAAAA!

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Daytona USA, one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, arcade racers of all time. The game never fared to well when it came to a home conversion, mainly due to the fact that no system could handle the graphical prowess required to run it smoothly. Sure, there where a couple attempts on the Saturn with Daytona and Daytona Championship Circuit, but the graphics where awful compared to the amazing visuals found in its arcade counterpart. The games replicated the gameplay well; it's just that the weak graphics kind of took away from the whole Daytona experience. Now enter the Dreamcast, finally a system strong enough to take Daytona on, and with much success.

I'll begin with the graphics since it has been such a staple in the Daytona series. I can pretty much sum them up in two words, simply amazing. Sega did a great job giving the port the sense of speed that the arcade version contains, while the Saturn version seemed to be missing a beat in terms of speed. What gives it this sense of speed is the rock solid 60 FPS. Even with 40 cars on screen the action never slows down, with pop up being almost non-existent. All racetracks are beautifully rendered, and sport an amazingly far draw distance. About the only complaint I have in terms of graphics is the 2-player split screen mode, man is it ugly. Major pop-up and slow down, avoid at all costs.

The audio in Daytona is everything you would expect from a racing game. Blazing engines, screeching tires, and intense crash effects fill in the game's audio department very well. Unfortunately, there is still that god-awful Daytona music. Sega, please stop it already; it's like pollution to my ears. I'm sure everyone else has heard it before and knows what I'm talking about. You're better off turning the music volume off and throwing some Metallica or Slayer into your CD player. Good background music for a racing game.

Game play in Daytona consists of good ole fashioned arcade racing. You don't have to worry about tweaking your car so you can shed a millisecond of your time, it's just get in and go, the way I like it. At the beginning you are given 4 cars to chose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, there are also many hidden cars that become available each time a certain task is completed. Daytona's tracks consist of 3 courses from the original, 2 from CCE, and 3 all new made for the Dreamcast. Just like most racers, Sega added the ability to go at the tracks in reverse, mirrored, or a combination of both, which pretty much gives you 32 different tracks variations.

One thing Daytona did lose in the transition is control; the analog stick is way too sensitive. But, with a little tweaking in the options menu you can get it to your liking, although, it never really seems perfect. Also, the powerslide, which is the main move used to get around those tight curves, seems a bit hard to pull off and may disappoint fans. All in all the controls are decent.

Just like any other racing game Daytona is chocked full of different modes to wet your racing appetite. Single race, Championship, Time Attack, Vs. Battle, and Net Battle are all the different ways of racing. I would go more into detail on the Net Battle, but Sega decided that Daytona shouldn't support broadband, grrr. Although, from what I have heard, the runs very smooth online even with a 56k modem, so all is good. As you can see the game has its share of modes and tracks to keep you racing a long time.