A word in the game title that at the same time spells both "Bomb" and "Bad", really?
The main menu setup on this title is a bit different than the traditional type of main menu. The first thing you can do is get right to the racing. The initial step in this process is to select how many human controlled players will be participating (1-4). Once this is done you then select which mode you want to play, of which there are five different types:
The first game mode is simply called "Race" and is the main mode of the game. Upon selecting it you will then choose which racer you want to control (there are eight in total, including Darth Maul, Jar Jar Binks, Sebulba, Boss Nass, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala). After selecting your racer you move on to the track selection. There are nine tracks in total, you can choose to play any one of them individually. Only the first few tracks are available when you start out on this game, the rest you must unlock by finishing in the top three in the race that precedes the one you're trying to unlock.
These races are also grouped in to circuits, and the circuits break down as such: Circuit 1 (Naboo Swamp, Dune Sea, Theed City), Circuit 2 (Podrace, Otoh Gunga, Mos Espa), Circuit 3 (Coruscant, Power Station, Droid Control Ship) and Galaxy Circuit (all nine of these races in a row). When racing in a circuit you are awarded points for finishing well (30 points for first, 20 for second, 10 for third, and 1 for fourth), the racer with the highest total points after all races have been run is the winner! If you fail to score any points right off the bat or fall out of contention later on in the circuit, your game will automatically end . . .
The second game mode is called "Teams" and is a slight variation on the Race mode. Instead of an every man for him or herself type of race, human controlled players partner up in teams of two and can challenge the competition at all of the above tracks. Whoever crosses the finish line first wins that race for their team. Because the game supports four human players maximum it can either be two buddies versus a game controlled twosome, or two buddies versus two buddies.
Third we have the "Challenge" mode, and it is a weird one. Any time you place first in a race (during Race or Race Mirror modes) you have the option to save that race as a Challenge. If you choose to do so the character you won said race with, as well as your finishing time, is saved and stored. When you go to Challenge mode you can select any of these races you've saved and challenge that character you won the race with, one on one, in a race at that same track. Like I said it's kind of weird, unlike any mode I've ever come across before . . .
"Arena" is the fourth game mode but it doesn't involve racing . . . it is simply straight up destruction! In this mode you are placed in an environment and have to battle all of the other game characters to the death. The last man, woman . . . alien standing wins. There are four environments in total, including Naboo Battlefield, Jedi Temple, Great Pit of Carkoon and Hoth Asteroid. The first two environments are available right off the get go, but the last two you must unlock by placing well in the preceding battles. You can also play the Arena Circuit, which works pretty much the same as the Race mode circuits. You battle in all four environments in a row and are awarded points based on how you finish, whoever has the highest total points at the end of the circuit wins.
The fifth and final game mode is titled "Race Mirror" and can only be unlocked by winning the Galaxy Circuit under Race mode. Race Mirror works in exactly the same way as Race mode, only the tracks are mirror images of their original selves, which in actuality can be quite confusing until you've raced them a number of times and gotten used to the differences! Like I said the races are all the same, as are all the circuits.
Getting back to the main menu there are three choices to peruse once you get past all of the above game modes. The first one is called "Options" and is where you can adjust a great many of the game's settings. Under Options you can alter the maximum number of racers (2-8), number of laps (1-5), toggle vibration on/off, toggle analog boost/brake on/off, as well as adjust the music and effects volumes.
Next we come to the "Controls" option. Here you can individualize the control layout for up to all four human controlled players in the game, picking from amongst four different pre-set control schemes.
The final selection on the game's main menu is "Credits", where you can view the names of the people who created this piece of software for us.
While out on the track (or battlefield) in Super Bombad Racing, there are a number of things to watch out for. First up are Boost items, which appear as sort of a jar on fire icon. Filling your boost gauge is important as that extra burst of speed can get you across the finish line first, or help you escape trouble approaching from the rear. Force Field gadgets are another important pickup, they appear as blue orbs with veins of pink running through them. Your character has a certain amount of Force Field energy protecting him or her at the beginning of each race or battle, but it will wear down as you collide with objects and get hit with weapons. These Force Field gadgets help replenish your supply and keep you protected. The Boost and Force Field pickups all come in a few different degrees of effectiveness. And now for the weapons! Front gadgets are weapons that fire forwards and appear as an orange starship icon. These weapons are randomly assigned when you make the pickup and can include the training droid, probe droid, photon burst, force field coupler, tractor beam, inversion ray or jammer weapons. Rear gadgets are weapons that fire backwards, damaging those chasing you. This pickup appears as a blue starship icon and again the weapon is assigned randomly when you make the pickup. The weapons here include the ion net, goo, multi-goo, energy ball, and multi-energy ball. Another pickup is the Mystery gadget, appearing as a pink circle with a question mark inside of it. This can end up being any type of pickup, assigned randomly. The final type of pickup is the Special gadget, which appears as a green hued starburst icon. This is a rare and powerful special weapon that works differently for each racer, something of a special move.
The game screen for Super Bombad Racing contains a fair bit of information but is easily understood. In the top left corner is a decent sized map of your current environment, showing the current locations of all racers. In the top right corner is the total elapsed time of your current race, directly underneath this is the lap counter, and directly underneath that is a list of all your completed individual lap times. The bottom right corner displays a combination between your Force Field meter and your Boost gauge. The Force Field meter is a pink semi-circle that will slowly whittle away as you take damage, and the Boost gauge is a yellow tube that will fill with orange fire as you gain Boost. In the bottom left corner you will find your current race position. And finally, when you make a pickup during game action an image of the specific pickup in question will show up in the top center of the screen, until it's been used. This is how the screen looks when you are racing . . . when you are in an Arena battle there are a couple minor changes. First of all, battles are not timed, so there is nothing showing in the top right corner of the screen. The only other change is that along the left edge of the screen is a gauge containing icons of all characters. The position of each icon sinks towards the bottom of the gauge the more damage they take, until they disappear completely, which means that particular character has been destroyed. This gauge supplements the battle position indicator below it and helps you target certain characters who may be close to elimination, or who have a big lead in the battle and need a little extra attention.
Outside of the main menu there are a couple of alternative menus you'll have to pay attention to. First is the pause menu, which is pretty basic, consisting of just three choices. Those choices include Resume, Restart Race (or Restart Arena, depending on which mode you're playing), and Main Menu. Pretty self-explanatory. The other menu you'll see more often is the one that appears after you complete a race or battle. This menu consists of four to five choices, including Race Again (or Play Again in Arena mode, this option will be replaced with Next Race or Next Arena if you successfully complete a circuit event in the respective modes), Change Course, Change Racers, and Main Menu. If you finish first in a Race or Race Mirror event there will be an additional option added in before the Main Menu option, called Save Challenge. This is what you select to save and store your race, to be used later on in the Challenge game mode.
As for the game controls, they are pretty traditional and very easy to use. To steer your racer simply move the left analog control stick. The X button is used for acceleration, whereas the Square button is used to brake/reverse. Triangle cycles the game's camera views, and with the O button you can tap to honk, or hold it to make your character perform a taunt. The L1 button is used to engage your boost function, while L2 let's you look behind your vehicle to see what's going on back there. R1 is what you press to use your equipped gadget/weapon, while R2 makes your character jump. Pressing the Select button toggles through all of the various HUD game screen options, while the Start button pauses the game action.
The presentation behind Super Bombad Racing is easily my favourite part of this title! The look of the game is so bubbly and cartoonish . . . it's a very bright and happy vibe this game gives off. All of the artwork rendered for Super Bombad Racing gives it it's own unique flavour, but at the same time is consistent with the look and feel of the original Phantom Menace film. The graphics aren't top drawer for the time, but they are pretty close. Everything is well composed and polished, the environments are diverse and colourful, and the job they did in designing each character (in all their large headed glory) and their personal vehicles is really cool. I also thought the sound was very well done. This game features some classic Star Wars pieces, only they've been kind of musaked, given a very fast and quirky makeover, perfectly suited for this type of kids' game. The sound effects and voiceovers are all quite well executed too, I read somewhere that Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best chipped in and reprised their roles as Anakin Skywalker and Jar Jar Binks (you go Jar Jar, damn the haters all to hell!!!). Finally, the control schemes are easy to get used to and respond as I feel they should, so once again very well executed.
There are both major pros and major cons involved with this title. As for pros, like I just said the presentation behind this game is really cool, virtually flawless for the type of game it is. The whole thing is a pleasure to take in as you make your way through it. Another major pro is the fun factor involved. If a game is super fun even the biggest of flaws can be tolerated, and that definitely applies in Super Bombad Racing's case. I also really like how many different game modes are offered, I felt they went out of their way to make sure players of this game had options. Now, as for the cons, the biggest one is a direct contrast to this multiple game modes pro I just mentioned. Although there are five different game modes, like I mentioned earlier in this review the Challenge mode is kind of weird and pointless. In my mind it hardly even qualifies as a game mode it's so unusual and unnecessary. Also, Race Mirror is just a retread of the Race mode, so it doesn't really count as a full game mode in my opinion either. So although the developers strived to add multiple game modes to Super Bombad Racing, they maybe didn't go about it in the right way. The other major con I found was the length, as there are only nine total race tracks available in this game. Although they package them up in to the various circuits, which adds a bit more longevity, it still doesn't mask the fact that there really isn't much to this game when you get right down to it. The same goes for Arena mode when you consider there are only four different environments to battle in. The final con I found was the utter lack of unlockable material, there is nothing to strive for in this game outside of the initial completion.
In terms of tips and tricks, there are a few I can offer to anybody interested in embarking on this title. First of all, learn right away about all of the various pickups and how they work. Knowing what weapon you're about to put in to the environment and it's effects will really help you become efficient at dealing with opposing racers, as well as protecting yourself against them and their attacks. Also get familiar with the track layouts, knowing what is beyond the next turn is important as you need to stay as far ahead as possible, so that you stay out of your opponent's weapons range. The various racers in this game pretty much break down in to three different categories based on their speed, defense, turning, etc. abilities. I tended to favour a certain type of racer, so find what style works for you and stick with it. In Arena mode it can sometimes pay to hide. Being right in the thick of the action in this game is rarely a good thing, it's most times a great way to die real fast. If you can find a nice place to hide it's sometimes a good idea to lay low and let the other racers deal each other damage while you rest. Lastly, I've heard that if you complete the Galaxy Circuit with Anakin Skywalker you'll unlock a Darth Vader character for play in the game! I haven't been able to confirm this yet, but I hope to get back at this game at some point to see it with my own eyes.
Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing is an interesting game, amazing in the fact that it can have both so much upside, but at the same time so much downside. It really is a roller coaster ride, but overall I was left with the feeling of greatly enjoying the time I spent on this game. It's not a masterpiece, but it's also not a disaster . . .