NEWS - Saturday, July 3, 2004
Ford Racing 3
It’s funny how car games grow popular. Empire insists on providing the casual gamer with a decent driving experience, an immense garage-full of Ford cars to drive at a cheap price, and voila! Gamers keep buying them. It’s honestly a mystery to me. So, despite its lackluster driving physics, sense of speed, and less than attractive handling, Empire is ready to bring Xbox, PC and PS2 owners a third game from the series, Ford Racing 3. Apparently, you asked for it. So, you shall receive. A standard sequel in every way, Ford Racing 3 offers some serious benefits; the game is packed with new racing modes, standard and unusual, and for the Xbox and PC, it offers the chance to connect and racing online for up to six people. Delivering the only game with the full official Ford license, developer Razorworks offers gamers 47 Ford cars to rave through a hefty set of single-players missions, each with their own reward set; 26 road, off-road, and racetrack circuits; and 11 race types across the world. The game features four driving viewpoints, automatic and manual transmission, several two-player modes, but does not offer any car damage. The vast array of driving modes is also pretty impressive, offering 16 different modes of play. They range from straight up races to elimination races to draft races, hill climbs, time attacks, and head start races. In short, if you like driving Ford cars regardless of the uninteresting physics and handling, you’ll never get bored driving this massive surfeit of cars. Honestly, if you’re a Ford car buff, you should give this thing a look. The roster of cars is quite attractive with a range of old fashioned classic models, pickups, coupe and Thunderbirds, old Galaxies, convertibles, Fairlaines and a huge cluster of Mustangs, the classic 1976 Gran Torino, and a hefty list of performance, offroad and muscle cars. Here’s the full lineup: 1923 Model T Sedan, 1931 Model A Roadster, 1946 Convertible; 1948 F1 Pickup, 1949 (that’s what the list says!), 1949 Coupe, 1955 Thunderbird, 1956 F-100, 1964 Galaxie 500, 1965 F-100, 1966 Fairlane GT, 1966 Thunderbird, 1968 Mustang, 1968 Mustang GT, 1968 Mustang Mach 1, 1972 Ranchero GT, 1973 Mustang Mach 1, 1973 XBO Falcon GT, 1967 Gran Torino, 1992 Mustang Mach III Concept, 1994 Powerstroke Concept, 1995 GT90 Concept, 1996 Indigo Concept, 1998 F-150 4x4, 1999 Focus Rally Car, 1999 Mustang FR200, 2001 Fortynine Concept, 2002 Crown Victoria, 2002 Explorer Sport Trac XLT, 2002 Flareside F-350 XLT Sport, 2002 SVT Sport, 2002 SVT Lightning, 2002 Taurus Stock Car, 2002 Thunderbird Convertible, 2003 Falcon XR8, 2003 FR100 Concept, 2003 Limited Edition Thunderbird, 2004 F-150 FX4, 2004 Ford GT, 2004 SVT Lightning, 2004 Mustang GT-R, 2005 Air Force Reserve Ford Focus, 2005 Mustang GT. Due this October on Xbox, PC and PS2 (and online for Xbox and PC only), Ford Racing is one of those pretty good games that’ll make a great present for a new console owner or someone who’s never really raced in any videogames before. You know, if you haven’t tried say, Burnout 2 or Gran Turismo 3 before, you might enjoy this. It’s not a bad game, but it’s probably not going to be very good either. But hey, it’s inexpensive.Source: http://www.ign.com
