Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home Review
I have to get something clear from the outset... If you are a hardened Dukes of Hazzard fan - don't go expecting too much with this game! Don't get me wrong. It's ok as far as driving games go, but I reckon the levels start to look quite alike after a while. And I'm afraid to say, that I started to find it slightly annoying and some of the levels a little bit boring. But I suppose, because I'm a dukes fan, I'll keep going back regardless. Well anyway folks, as the story goes, Boss Hogg is after the Duke boys again. This time its up to the boys to save the family farm, defend the Duke name, avoid the law and rescue the beautiful Daisy Duke from the clutches of the crooked Black Jack Perril! ...all in a days work for the duke boys! So, if the thought of cruising along the roads of Hazzard County in the Duke's General Lee sounds appealing, then this game is most definitely for you.
After you finally manage to get behind the wheel of the Duke's General', you'll be able to do quite a number of reasonably cool things. These include jumping over creeks and through barns, doing powerslides and bootleg reverses; hydroplaning, driving on two wheels, running through road blocks, jumping and landing on a flat bed trailer as well as doing a corkscrew barrel roll jump! Sounds like the duke's of hazzard we all know...
However, you really must learn to keep your hand steady because any reckless driving, collisions of any kind, or accidents in Hazzard can cause body and tire damage to the car, resulting in the car's performance being reduced. But don't worry - there's no need to panic - You can repair your vehicle. However, it is at the risk of loosing time or being captured! If that isn't enough for you there's a whole series of missions to play. These include saving Uncle Jesse from masked bandits in order to get the monthly mortgage payment delivered to the bank on time, racing for prize money in the Hazzard Overland Race, chasing car thieves who have driven off in the General Lee and rescuing Daisy from her kidnappers.
Throughout the missions you will be able to collect a number of power-ups - for example arrows, high-octane nitro boosts, spare tyres, toolboxes, nails, oil slicks, smoke, glue and bonus time. Occasionally you get to shoot dynamite loaded arrows (Duke style), to blow out the bad guy's tyres, clear obstacles and take out bridges. I personally think the dynamite loaded arrows are damn cool!
And in case you were wondering, Vehicles included are the General Lee (naturally), Boss Hogg's convertible, Uncle Jesse's pickup, Rosco's patrol car, Cooter's tow truck, Boss Hogg's Gray Ghost, Uncle Jesse's Black Tillie, Black Jack Perril's 'Ace Of Spades' and the infamous 'Double Zero', the only car to ever beat the General Lee in an overland race. Yeeehaaawwwww!!!
The game interaction isn't all that bad, I suppose! Although it's a relatively straight forward menu system, it's slightly slow. Say for example you were highlighting a selection at the top of the screen, but you wanted to get to something right down the bottom. You could be hitting the directional pad as fast as hell, but it wouldn't make no odds. It would still plod along regardless of how fast you want to go. On the main menu the new player has the choice of the following options. New Game, Continue Game, Two Player, Options, Credits. To navigate your way 'round these different menu choices you must select either the X button to proceed to your next selection, or the Triangle button to go back to your previously chosen selection. When you select New Game, You can select a name of you choice of anything up to 12 letters. You also have a choice of three difficulties - Easy, Tuff, Hard... So after you've set your self up for a dukes-style driving experience, you need to figure out the default controls. These are: X Button - Accelerate, Square Button - Brake, Triangle Button - Reverse, Circle Button - Use Power Up. Then you have the L & R buttons... R1 - Power Up, R2 - View Out, L1 - Power Up, L2 - View In. Simple enough eh?
The usual first and third person points of view with side views to the left and to the right as well are available to the budding driver.
The Fmv is really good, it's comes across as quite smooth from what I've seen of the game. I haven't really noticed any problems with the graphics, neither have I noticed any major clipping... Graphically I think the guys behind this game have done quite a good job. I suppose the best way to describe The overall musical theme behind Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home is American country and western style. I have to admit, some times while the music is playing, I could easily imagine some of the folks at hazzard county getting up and line dancing (lol). I suppose the music is quite catchy and appropriate to the game. I haven't watched Dukes of Hazzard on the television for one hell of a long time. But if my memory serves me correct, when you turn the game on, you should hear the original intro theme to the televisions show. :)
When I first heard about the possibility of a dukes of hazzard game I thought - Yeah it's bound to be amazing. For a while (while the novelty of the game was still in tact) I thought it was quite good. I suppose it still is, to a level. The only complaint that I have with the game is that a lot of the levels seem to look a like, and that ends up increasing my boredom to such a level where I just end up turning it off. Don't get me wrong the missions are all totally different, it's just that same stretch of road seems to be used quite a lot. Everyone who remembers The Duke Of Hazzard on TV remembers there stunts. Every time they'd do a really big jump, they'd blow their horn and go "yehaaaaaaa". Naturally this has been included in the game. I can do the jump, and the Yehaaa is part of the jump. But timing it just right so the horn goes off before they shout and land the car is damn hard. I think I've only ever managed to do it once, in all the time that I've played it. Hmmm... :/