Tecmo proves itself worthy of the track by releasing one of the few if not the only horse racing games for the Playstation 2 console. This has to be one of the best horse racing games ever made because of its great game play options and how accurate and realistic it feels. From the start of the game, you are given three modes to choose from. The first mode and obviously the most popular one is the career mode. This mode lets you do everything from buy the horse, be the breeder, train the horse, and obviously race the horse.
In the beginning you are left with an empty stable and a good amount of cash. Your mission is to breed a great horse, understand all of its abilities and win races. Next, you visit a horse shop and check out the stats and cost of the horses there. If none of them please you then you can special order your own horses with the stats that you want. If you do not know much about horse racing then this may be a bit confusing at first but as it goes on it is pretty easy to catch on. Once you have what you think may be a competitive horse, you finally get to race it. To even come close to winning, you need to know about your horse and its abilities on the track. Without this, you will be left behind and finish dead last. When you win a race you not only get cash, but the stats of your winning horse get raised significantly.
The second mode of Gallop Racer is the multiplayer mode. In this mode, you can use new or pre made horses and race against each other or with other horses. Horses used in this mode can either be the same ones used in career mode, brand new horses, or horses that were saved on your memory card. The third and final mode of Gallop Racer is the one that I found most unique and fun. In Watch mode you get to be the millionaire who comes to watch horse races and bet on horses. This very realistic mode shows you everything from the betting slip to the fat rich guy jumping for joy when his horse wins.
The animation of the horses is probably one of the most impressive factors of this game. There are no rough edges on these finely tuned horses and all look extremely real. The rest of the graphics in this game were not great but the animation of the horses was truly amazing. Throughout the game there are also several options that you can change. From weather to dirt this game lets you choose whatever type of condition that you want to race in.
Overall, this was a great game that proved to me that all horseracing games aren?ft bad. In the past I have played several of these types of games and none were really what I expected but this one really set the stage for the future of horse racing games. I would probably recommend this game to anyone who has an interest in horse racing and thinks that all horse-racing games are no good.
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