Open Kart

Open Kart is a brand new racing game from Viacom (responsible for VU Games' RacePro Race Simulator franchise), and it puts players in the driver's seat of three highly detailed and customizable vehicles. In addition to the requisite vehicle types, each vehicle offers different effects, and players can use more than 1,000 horsepower to take the wheel of the car.

The game's preview version was very smooth, displaying all of the action from the races we've seen. The game's frame rate has remained roughly similar to that of EA's F1 game, and we could only put so much weight behind it. The tracks are rendered with a nice amount of detail, and the 3D graphics are both sharp and fluid. It's also worth noting that the game is still a work in progress, so we can't even get a sense of how it's shaping up until we get our hands on it. In terms of performance, it's almost indistinguishable from the VU's debut title, which didn't feel like much of a game at all.

The game's controls let you control both your car and the computer, though its AI is very smart. The cars handle well, and the artificial intelligence isn't out of the woods. In fact, some of the biggest AI accidents we've seen in a racing game come when you make a bad turn and are out of the race, which sometimes gets very hard. However, in a more frustrating, but still very entertaining way, you can use the AI cars to take your opponents out of the race and even set a new lap time. The game also features a face-off mode, which is where you'll choose which car to control and then take a few turns after another. The AI drivers are pretty solid, too, although their handling and track times were lacking.

Graphically, MotorStorm: Apocalypse is an extremely attractive game. The cars are high quality and look particularly good. The environments are a little sparse, but they're well rendered and offer plenty of objects to interact with. Explosions and cars don't appear to be in the game at all, but in fact they are so good, you'll rarely find yourself being kicked into the windshield of the track.

We got to try out a variety of different control options, including four-way steering, steering, and a power-adapter. The setup works extremely well and allows you to assign a single button to a power-adapter for an assist. Once you activate the power-adapter, you're able to assign up to four buttons to each of your three AI cars. The left shoulder button is used for switching between driving mode, steering mode, and the game's default speed. The wheel is also used for turning. If you're feeling particularly aggressive, you can always lock on to an opponent and pull off a damaging move to set them up for a clean victory.

As far as the game's visuals are concerned, Jet Set Radio Future is looking quite impressive. The car models are highly detailed and feature detailed car models. The detail is more subtle than in the previous games, but the game's texture design is at least passable. The environments offer a nice variety of surprises as well. The various shortcuts and multiple objectives give the game an impressive variety of paths to take through each section. As far as the sound goes, Jet Set Radio Future features some high-quality sound that reflects the varied soundtrack that follows the tracks.

From what we've played so far, Jet Set Radio Future seems to be a pretty impressive sequel. The audio, while still not complete, seems to be coming together nicely. We have to say that, in terms of variety, it's one of the better parts of the game. The game's soundtrack is nicely varied, and it's complemented by a range of moody sound effects. The use of real-time music in the game's gameplay--that is, the main character and the graffiti tagging around the city--is excellent. The game's soundtrack also manages to outshine other games in the series, and it does a great job of building up to an experience. While the sound isn't quite as refined as that of the original Jet Set Radio, the tunes still give it a lot of personality and appeal.

The game's visuals do a great job of getting the Xbox to run at a solid 60 frames per second. The character models are nice and animate well and look good. The environments feature some nice touches, such as billboards and dramatic lighting effects, as well as some subtle effects like in-game cinematics that add to the cinematic feel. Though the frame rate isn't quite up to the standard set by other games, the frame rate seems to be solid. While it's not quite up to par with that of the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast games, Jet Set Radio is still a fine effort.

The game's audio is one of the best in the series.