Beetle/Awesome Adventure Racing
 

YouTube Video

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/9...gameboxri1.png

I just picked up a copy of HSV Adventure Racing the other day, essentially an Australian-exclusive re-release with new cars and a piss poor attempt at an Aussie accent for the announcer. But it still plays the same and MAN this game is still completely bloody awesome. Even the graphics have aged well which is almost unpossible for a Nintendo 64 game. Apparently, as the legend goes, this game came about because EA didn't think enough people would be interested in a Need for Speed game on the system. I wish EA would decide this sort of thing more often. BAR was about exploring the track, finding the coolest shortcuts you possibly could, a bit like the Rush games but BETTER. I mean it had dinosaurs and everything. Plus the tracks were absolutely massive, which is good, because there's only six of them. The music is pretty annoying though, like three beats looped over and over and over and over. So where's a new one already? EVERYONE DEMANDS A SEQUEL, EA. Everyone! I was pretty depressed when a BAR 2 never surfaced on N64, so you can imagine the state I'm in after all these years of no BAR 2.

BARBARBLACKSHEEPHAVEYOUANYWOOL.

I have fond memories of driving through boxes and barns ins this game!

Nothing says 'adventure' more than smashing boxes!

I really love this game. It's freaking amazing how many shortcuts this game has. And the length of the courses? One of them took me like 8 minutes to finish...only one lap!!

I remember that mode where you had to destroy all the boxes AND finished first. Some stages took me weeks to finish because there always was this stupid ultra-hidden box that I couldn't find.

Pretty damn challenging because it had sooo many different routes and if you missed a box once, it's almost impossible to get it on the next lap, since you have to take the others routes to get the rest of the boxes.

IMO, the only thing bad about this game is the multiplayer. It was boring. Most of the stages were pretty big so it was hard to find the other cars and the beetles.

But it doesn't matter really. This game is awesome for it's single player. Expect a lot of frustration with those damn boxes. I still have bad dreams at night. Sniff...

Is it running at 8 FPS in the video or is that just the fault of this crappy computer?

Nah, the game runs smooth. Obviously not at 60 fps, but it's pretty decent anyways. It doesn't have slow-downs as far as I remember.

For a second, I thought this was a game about actual beetles racing. I'm slightly disappointed.

When I was around 12 or so, I was a big fan of the VW Beetle, but not so much anymore. However, I never had a Nintendo 64 so I missed out on playing this game. I doubt it would come to the Virtual Console, right? :(

They'd have to get the license again and EA probably doesn't care enough to do that. I fortunately was able to get this game out of my friend's mitts before he foolishly sold all his N64 stuff to EB for an Xbox.