Zogging Hell!!!

Er yes. That's the first thing that comes to mind when you switch on with Club Drive in the cartridge slot of everyone's favourite feline console. Graphically Club Drive has sprung from the Hard Drivin' school of fame, and might well have used the same creaking graphics engine for all I can see. The Hard Drivin' influences don't stop there either. There's a similar feel to some of the levels as well. Tragically Club Drive also hails from the Jaguar unfinished, rushed onto the market club. The controls are way off, the car seemingly devoid of real physics. The 3D graphics are horrendously glitchy, and must have been the subject of all of 30 minutes of play testing. The car sound effects are dreadful and are put to shame by all but the worst of ST sound chip noises. Playability is further reduced by terrible collision detection; your car often flips over in the middle of the road for no reason and spectacularly rolls when you clip a corner at two miles an hour. Unfortunately, and this is the big downer, this game stinks a bit. A downer because, possibly more than any other Jag launch title, it has the promise of being brilliantly good. The levels in their unfinished way are pretty exciting, and it's great fun riding round them. This is particularly true of the groundbreaking Jerome's Pad, where you drive a miniature car round a house, and the wild west themed levels. Obviously these were the levels nearest to completion and there are some good moments (even a animated texture mapped fireplace on Jerome's Pad). This game is unfortunately too near the demo/beta stage, and lacks a lot of game to it. The innotive tag and powerball collection, as well as the point to point racing, are reasonably fun in two player, but the point to point racing in one player is soul destroying, and the powerball collection isn't much better. Four worlds/ tracks (five if you include the travesty that is 'Planet Todd') aren't anywhere near enough to keep you interested for all that long. What else, well the external camera views for your car are terrible, and, yes, this game badly needs more texture mapping (or even shading). Suprisingly amongst all this, the music is quite chirpy, in a Mario, Nintendo kind of way. This game is such a huge dissappointment because it had the potential to be a absolute classic, but Atari released it way to early in development.

Zogging Hell Rating: 5/10

Cheats

Planet Todd: (During World Selection View) 4 + 2, firebutton (this is crap by the way).

Drop and Fixed Camera views/ debug: (During gameplay) 8 + 6.

Atari Building: Enter the flashing wall inside the mine shaft on Wild West World in a one player game.

The Castle: Enter the first floor fireplace of Jerome's World during a single player race. Must have fast car option turned on.