Wave Race 64 was one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games so as you can imagine, I have been looking forward to the next Wave Race game. Well, it took five years of waiting but Nintendo finally decided to release a new Wave Race game and although it is a great game, it doesn’t seem to be as spectacular was Wave Race 64.
There are quite a few different playing modes in Wave Race: Blue Storm. But before you can start playing, you have to choose one of eight racers. Some of the riders from the first game are in Blue Storm while others like Miles Jeter must have decided to retire from racing. To make up for this, there are a lot of new racers including some from 1080 Snowboarding on Nintendo 64. The main game mode is the Championship mode where you race on a selection of tracks and try to get the most points overall at the end of the circuit. Stunt Mode is very similar to Wave Race 64’s Stunt Mode. You select a track and try to do as many tricks as you can while trying to go through rings located throughout the track. Your points increase as you pass through each ring. Perhaps the best feature is the new multiplayer mode. Instead of just 2 players, up to 4 people can race against each other on any of the tracks. These races can often get very intense and for good reason, since you are dealing with other players and not just the AI.
Unfortunately, there are some problems that keep Wave Race: Blue Storm from being a top-notch game. The biggest problem has to do with the overall game design. Nintendo had 5 years to work on a new Wave Race game so you would expect that the new game would be vastly superior to its predecessor right? Well, out of the eight new tracks, two of them, Dolphin Park and Southern Island were taken directly from Wave Race 64. The other 6 tracks, are new but they are so simplistic in design that it almost seems like much thought wasn’t given on how to make some interesting tracks. Another smaller problem is that the graphics, while above average, don’t really seem that impressive. The reflections on the water and the waves themselves are beautiful but the character models and track environments really need some work. They just look dull and need to be sharper.
Even with its faults, I still enjoyed Wave Race: Blue Storm. It is still a blast to play especially with 4 players. If you played Wave Race 64 to death and weren’t that big of a fan, a rental should be enough. However, if you really liked Wave Race 64 or want a decent racing game for Gamecube, Wave Race: Blue Storm is a good choice for your next game purchase.