Developer: Locomotive Publisher: Ascii Release: 04/01/98 Genre: Racing
With the advent of 3d many racing games began to exploit the futuristic niche that F-Zero established. Wipeout is the breakout star of this bunch but there were many others like Cyber Speedway, Extreme-G, and Hi-Octane. One unfortunate straggler that has long since been forgotten is AeroGauge. In the race to beat F-Zero X to market it won. However AeroGauge has many, many problems and is a bad game. First does not always mean best.
The comparison o F-Zero is there but AeroGauge at least tries to be different. You have a choice between five hover cars initially with ratings in six categories: speed, acceleration, steering, aero limit (time to become airborne), shield, and stability (gripping power). You are not limited to the ground and can take to the sky at any time. In fact you fly faster near the peak. However shield regenerators and boost strips are only on the track itself, forcing you to manage your time between the two. This is a stripped down experience that focuses strictly on the racing, meaning there are no weapons or power-ups. Unfortunately with those features missing the game is unbearably difficult due to terrible mechanic.
The drift boost is the game’s central mechanic and one that it revolves around. It sounds simple in theory: by holding Z and pressing left or right you will begin to drift. Release both the drift and accelerate button and immediately accelerating will provide a speed boost that differs depending on the chosen vehicle. In practice it is anything but. Mess up the timing and you come to a dead stop. The AI is absolutely ruthless in this game and even one or two mistakes are enough to ruin a race. But you have to chance it because otherwise coming in first is impossible. This one mechanic and its half assed implementation ruins the game.
Because the game is based so heavily around its boost mechanic the difficulty is through the roof. If you cannot master boosting you will never the first or second place riders outside of the starting line. At best you might eke out 6th place. Through many frustrating hours I was able to somewhat get the maneuver down. But even then it still felt like a 50/50 chance of it working. I would have been better off doing something else instead. Instead of enjoying the game it basically became a matter of extracting some manner of fun out of my weekend rental at the time. Had the developers implemented some other way to boost or just a press of a god damn button the game would be infinitely more playable.
During the fifth generation most racing games offered minimal content and AeroGauge is no different. There are only four tracks initially and five cars. You can unlock a further five vehicles and two more tracks but it still does not make for a satisfying experience no matter how much the game tries to make do with how little it offers. One of the two hidden tracks is a remixed version of Chinatown and while it is admittedly probably the best in the game the awful boost implementation ruins any fun you could possibly have. I really want to like this game but between its controls and mechanics I simply cannot. That says a lot considering Nintendo 64 owners were not spoiled for choice until later in its life.
AeroGauge is a mixed bag visually which is unfortunate as I like many of its track designs. The game makes egregious use of fog to hide its low draw distance and even that is not enough. You can literally see the track drawing in as you approach which is awful. It is not quite Saturn Daytona level bad but close. The game is excessively blurry which ruins the otherwise good art direction. The track themes are good and some like China Town stand out and are beautiful. Even the soundtrack is pretty good, with almost thirty tracks which is overkill considering how little content there is. It is obvious there was work put into the title but it seems they did not have a handle on the N64 hardware.
In Closing
AeroGauge is not a good game. The mediocre graphics, limited content, and awful mechanics ruin what had the makings of a decent package. At one point I remember looking forward to the game as I had just completed Wipeout XL. Luckily the constant delays turned my attention elsewhere. That was a stroke of luck as my disappointment would have been tremendous had I bought the game. F-Zero X bests it in every category.
