Crazy Cars II

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Ok, this is a racing game with minor action features so, as every one would expect, the story is quite simple. Driving an exotic sports-car, the almighty Ferrari F40, you travel across America to find evidence that will uncover a group of corrupted police officers involved in grand theft auto business! During the race (or should I say "chase") there are many forks to follow, indicating with arrows at the top of the screen which route is quicker for you. Be careful though because any high-speed collision may cause the car to explode! (No worries! You have an infinite supply of F40s!) Actually, your only real problem is to lose valuable time. There are also lots of road blocks to cope with and you must watch for the police cruisers (namely, the "legal" ones) and stay out of their way (every time you hear sirens closing in!). Note that, the cardridge version (CPC+ only) contains the game’s map into it and the player can access to it during gameplay. This map is missing on the tape version (CPC only) during gameplay, but it is included inside the game box as a physical paper map!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The GX4000 version offers nice graphics and sound. But I would expect better things here, to be honest, due to the advanced GX (and CPC+ computers) graphics hardware! The F40 is nicely drawn and the sprite animation is smooth. The backdrops are colorful (a raster effect in the sky with color shading), while there are a few hardware sprites used i.e. the smoke coming out of the exhaust. The sound is just adequate though, and you may choose either sound FX or music during gameplay. The introductory tune is fine but cannot compare to the superior tune found on the (old) CPC version of the game (offering the original fully digitized rock-style track!). During gameplay, if you choose music, there is a "catchy" but rather highly repetitive tune, while if you choose FX, these are of low quality and directly ported from the CPC computer's version (i.e. the F40 explosion when it crashes, engine sound etc).