Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament

The Good
The thing about Micro Machines 2 is that it is an incredibly amusing game. It is about racing mini-versions of several vehicles (everything from monster trucks to helicopters) over regular household racing courses, like the kitchen table, bathtub, etc.

The racing is done from a top-down perspective, which is slightly awkward yet playable on the PC version, where the size of the display and graphics resolution makes things easier to see than on the Gameboy. Said graphics are bright and colorful, and the whole thing captures the plastic-like world of the once mighty Micro Machines toy empire.

However the hot features in the game are the head-to-head vs racing, and it's multiplayer tournament options which makes it a blast to play against friends. Why's that? And how can a top-down racer accomodate more than 1 player on a single computer? Well, it's because the 2p mode doesn't depend of who wins the race or who doesn't. Instead it has a score-marker that goes up whenever you manage to leave your opponent off the screen, this makes the races extremely nerve-wrecking as every mistake counts, and as you frantically try to slam your opponent against some obstacle, it's great fun believe me!

Other than that, the game comes with a full-fledged editor that even allows you to make your own cars. Not only was it powerful, but it was also simple enough for a kid to master in seconds. One of my greatest joys with this game was to craft a dark and brooding "Bat-Cave" track filled with jumps and pits complete with a Bat-mobile to race on it!!

The Bad
All multiplayer action goes in one PC which sucks since this game would have been a winner on office lans. I remember this thing being installed on some computers over my school's lan... man, if only it had been networkable...

Also, the graphics are cute and all, but could definitely have used more detail.

The Bottom Line
Great fun for multiplayer racing back on it's day. Sure, sometimes it was just too damn cute when you had Doom or Mortal Kombat around. But nothing gives as much bang for the buck as this!..... well, maybe Slick's 'n slides, but this game is still a fun diversion. Perfect for covert office gaming.

The Good
Micro Machines 2 is, along with Dune 2, Doom 2 & Streets of Rage 2 an example of how to make a game sequel. For this title they took the premise laid down in the original and made it far better. Which was no mean feat because the original was a very good game.

Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament again finds you racing across several familiar places with your shrunken vehicles. This time around, as well as the standard challenge mode found in the original, there are much improved multi-player features and an all new league mode.

With the depth of the game now far better than in the original, the gameplay has a lot to live up to. It however is now even better. With a broader range of both vehicles and terrain now included it makes the playing experience so much more satisfying.

The visuals are greatly enhanced & the sound has also been improved, it is no longer too fuzzy and boring.

The multiplayer feature though, is the icing on the cake. On the genesis version the game was released as a J-Cart. This was an ingenious Codemasters invention which allowed 2 controllers to be plugged into the cartridge itself, thus eliminating the need for a 4-way play peripheral. As long as care was exercised when using it a lot of fun was to be had with this game in multi-player. Up to 8 people could partake in a 'party play' scenario as the game was played with two players to a joypad. It's difficult to describe but if you have 3-7 friends to hand, call them up, tell them to bring a Mega Drive joypad and stick this on for a guaranteed laugh.

MM2 was one of the best games on the Mega Drive for seriously fun multi-player & single player action.

The Bad
There were some levels in the challenge mode & League mode which were extremely hard to complete.

The Bottom Line
An excellent title that is worth every penny.