Developer: Rare Publisher: Tradewest Released: 1992 Genre: Racing
It’s interesting to look back and examine Rare’s 16-bit efforts. Their work during the latter years of the SNES is now legendary but you would never have expected that based on their earlier titles. Their Sega Genesis ports were decent but incredibly lazy; seeing what they were able to get out of the NES it is not unreasonable to have expect a significant leap in quality but the games were almost identical. Championship Pro Am is perhaps the most disappointing as it could have fixed the flaws in the NES game but instead brings them over wholesale. There are far too many good racing games for the system to suffer the frustration present here.
First the good points. As a package Championship Pro Am has a lot of content. 32 tracks of escalating (heh) difficulty is nothing to sneeze at. In actuality there are really only about 8 track variants but most will not notice at first. The game increases the number of laps or adds hazards such as rain, oil and barricades for variety. It sounds minor goes a long way toward making the tracks feel unique. The game is about fighting the tracks just as much as the AI opponents since even the tiniest mistake can put you out of the race.
Once you adapt to the controls they are great and allow you to slide in and out of turns with ease. The accurate controls allow you to better focus on collecting items strewn about each track and to send a missile up your opponent’s tailpipes. The vehicle upgrades such as tires for better grip and engines for higher top speed help somewhat in eking out a victory at the last possible second (which happens far too frequently). With a higher resolution you can see more of the track to plan ahead although this advantage is nothing too drastic.
There have been numerous subtle additions that to a degree alleviate the difficulty. They succeed in some ways but fails in others. There are now five rival cars instead of 3 creating some room for error and still managing to stay in the race. Continues are earned after every five tracks which is huge. Score multipliers have been increased top to bottom further allowing you to earn continues. If you manage spell out Champion a third and fourth time your maximum speed is permanently increased, not that it makes much difference.
Unfortunately despite all of the additions the one area that desperately needed to be reworked is its awful AI. The same rubber band AI that ruined the NES game is present and accounted for. It should be obvious by my tone that I do not like it. The AI has a few rules that technically you can exploit but in practice is nearly impossible. The different colored cars react to your movements in certain ways: if you pull ahead the blue car will blow past you but slow down. If you excessively destroy your rivals the yellow car will accelerate past your top speed and lap you. It is ridiculous.
Taking advantage of this behavior requires a juggling act impossible to maintain in the heat of the moment. The AI is so bad that by track 4 every race will boil down to the last few seconds. It feels unfair and renders all of your actions prior to these few seconds irrelevant. I am sure some will find this fun but the margin for error is so low it isn’t worth it. But that is just my opinion.
Aside from the terrible rubberbanding the game’s presentation is a letdown. R.C. Pro AM was a solid looking game on the NES and that carries over. Sadly they did little to take advantage of the better technology. Everything looks sharper with a slight increase in color plus the cars are bigger but that is it. It’s not bad, just…adequate. Compared to its competition such as Super Monaco GP and Mario Andretti Racing it feels lacking however.
In Closing
I really want to like this but the AI is too aggravating to deal with. To an extent I was able to overlook the AI in the game’s original release since it was unique. But a few years later and a new platform could and should have fixed it. Championship Pro Am is a missed opportunity to make a good game great.
