It would be an understatement to say that I was vexed by my complete lack of success with the game. In that time, my car exploded a few hundred times, I spun out every few seconds, and I never placed higher than fourth. Given the strangeness of the way the gameplay works, I was about ready to give up on San Francisco Rush after my first couple of hours with the game. To get ahead, you've got to cheat, and that means scouring the road for shortcuts and secrets to launch yourself into first place. Unlike a lot of racing games you may have played, you won't be able to breeze through the tracks on your first play through. Once you can get around the tracks without blowing up, you'll have to spend a lot of time getting to know the courses. Cornering, breaking, jumping, these are all fairly standard mechanics for over the top racing games, but these are all handled in way that isn't much like any other I've played. The controls are standard, but are complicated by the flawed physics system that the game uses. I'm used to games that are easy to learn and difficult to master, but this game almost flips that hackneyed saying on its head. Graphics may not make the game, but gameplay certainly does, and 2049 delivers an unusual brand of racing. If you're going to play a ten-year-old game, you know what you're in for, and 2049 's graphics are no worse than other games on the N64, but if things like that bother you, this might not be the best game to play. In general, you're not going to be going around the tracking thinking to yourself, Oh, these graphics are god awful, I wish I were playing Gran Turismo 5. The first generation of a new technology is always an awkward adjustment, and the graphics of 2049 reflect the Nintendo 64's primitive visuals, but, that said, I don't think that the graphics detract from the game in any way. A juicy tidbit, eh? Read on, dear listener.Īs one of the first 3-D consoles, it's hard to say a lot about the graphics in comparison to other games.
That said, sometimes first impressions are deceiving. I quite enjoy a dash of fast-paced arcade racing, but it is important to stress that not every game in that genre is created equally well. Released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64, San Francisco Rush 2049 is an arcade racing game set in the future, which gives it the excuse to play fast and loose with things like architecture, physics, and, apparently, the fundamentals of logic. Apparently, though, in the year 2049, the citizens of the Southern California city well known for its Castro neighborhood and flamboyant gay community have all decided to buy ridiculous cars and catapult themselves across the skyline. When I think of San Francisco, I don't usually think of fast cars and explosions.