WEC Le Mans

Copyright : Imagine | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Another racing game with pretty much the same story as the last one you looked at, but just in case you have no idea what the story is behind such games - here we go.

You are a top class racing drive that has manged to fight his way through to the big one, the WEC Le Mans which was sponsored by such companies as Dunlop and BP Fuel. You must race against 20 other drivers of the same class and achieve 1st possition on a variety of tracks in many different locations or face life on the dole looking for another occupation.

That?s about as much as you need to know about this game, the arcade was hydrolic powered and span around when you hit another car - imagine that in your bedroom!.

On with the review.

Graphics

As I said earlier the arcade was hydrolic powered and if you hit an on coming vehicle you were span around on the spot, they later released another cabinet because people wouldn?t sit on an arcade that did something like that due to fear of hurting themselves or looking a prat. I had a go though.

This is one of those games that I purchased because of the front cover, I know you?re not supposed to do that but I couldn?t resist it...it was just too tempting. I originally played the game on an Amstrad CPC 464 with a green screen monitor (yuck!) but now when I compare it to the 6128 version with colour monitor it doesn?t look that different at all, so everyone with a GT 65 monitor - rejoice. The graphics are all well drawn and you even get to see the car flip over when you hit the side of the road or an another vehicle, colour wise the guys at Imagine might as well not have bothered - the only colours green screeners missed out on are blue, grey and dark grey - oooh.

Sound

Sound is amazing, the title theme is one of the best I have ever heard in a computer game and I remember spending many days humming that song to my parents - they didn?t appreciate it very much though. You also get to hear your own car engine changing speed and gear, along with some great crash sounds and in-game music to signal a "well done" kind of thing.

Gameplay

Gameplay is great also, the arcade is being emulated in MAME but I actually prefer the home computer version because it is much more challenging. The controls are very responsive and providing you keep at a good speed, break at the corners and dodge the other drivers you should make it through each checkpoint with ease - even if you don?t you?ll only start again. This is one of the most addictive racing games on the CPC.