A flawed by interesting game. One of the earlier 3-D driving
games, Club Drive is filled with interesting ideas
that aren't quite fleshed out. Besides offering 1-2 player
racing, it also offers Powerball (a capture the flag variant)
and Tag.
The environments are varied and include a stretch of San
Fransisco, the old west, a parking deck, the inside of
a house (the cars being R.C. scaled), an orange race track
inspired by Hot Wheels plastic tracks, and what can only
be described as skateboard parks for cars.
The graphics are simple and are very much in the flat
shaded VR style. The music is catchy and silly. What holds
the game back is the game's control. The cars tend to
turn akwardly, spin out easily, and have their own idea
about the laws of physics! This will definitely frustrate
if you try to play the game as a traditional car game
(i.e. driving really fast is unreliable).
However, Club Drive has a mellow feel to it, that
suits "tooling around" and exploration. There
are secret places to find (a castle, Atari headquarters)
as well as a secret level—Planet Todd—with a
great skate park (press 2+4 when choosing the environment
and play powerball). The replay mode is fun, particularly
if you try to make movies of driving off road, or of crashing
on purpose.
If this sounds interesting, then Club Drive comes
recommended. As a side note, many of the ideas in the
game later show up in Motor Toon GP and San
Fransisco Rush.
2008 ben langberg, all rights reserved.