[LGR Theme plays]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
[typing]
Think to yourself for a moment of open world driving games.
What is the first one you can think of?
If you thought of Vette!,
the street race simulation through San Fransisco,
then I'd be impressed.
In fact, the only older open world driving game that I know of
is Durell Software's Turbo Esprit.
This one is from Spectrum HoloByte and Sphere, Inc.
from 1989 for AT-class MS-DOS PCs
and Apple Macs with an FPU.
This is the DOS version we'll be looking at in this video,
and it is awesome.
I mean, first thing's first here.
You've gotta judge a game by its cover
and Vette! wins.
The chrome-y golden raised logo,
that totally awesome cover artwork
with a Corvette totally pulling a Knight Rider over hide,
and on some versions you had this sticker
which totally sticks it to its contemporary,
Test Drive II: The Duel.
"The REAL duel," it boasts,
since the game features head-to-head multiplayer,
as was a staple of Spectrum HoloByte games of the time.
This is one of the many excellent games from the guys at Sphere,
who were known for the popular Falcon franchise.
And some of the same design team went on to make the very impressive Stunt Driver,
which I reviewed previously,
and later moved to EA to make Road Rash.
But Vette! kind of stands apart,
since it's a very open-ended game with lots of very innovative stuff.
The game comes on multiple possible disk formats,
with CGA and EGA versions on separate floppies.
None of these disks are copy protected,
so you'll need the manual to answer some trivia when you start the game up.
Besides providing copy codes, the manual is packed to the brim
with information regarding the game,
the history of the Corvette,
and detailed specifications of the cars.
There's even a section which tells you exactly what settings to try
if your machine has less-than-optimal performance.
Dang, why didn't Crisis come with a section like this?
You also get a very bright and handy reference card with controls and interface notes,
as well as a full map of the game,
which is, of course, a map of San Fransisco,
complete with landmarks and history of those locations on the back.
I mean, wow.
This is the kind of stuff that you just don't see with games anymore,
and it's kind of a shame,
but thankfully Spectrum HoloByte always included these kinds of things
which can still be appreciated today.
Once you start the game up,
you'll be greeted with a very impressive high-res title screen
and a short rendition of the song "I Left My Heart In San Fransisco."
[PC speaker version of "I Left My Heart..." plays]
Is that a tiny EGA Tony Bennett?
Man, now that's a phrase I never thought I'd say.
If you hadn't noticed, the game uses one of the
high-res EGA modes for these static scenes,
and it looks really great,
with all sorts of wonderfully dithered details
that look amazing on a CRT monitor.
You have your choice of four 1989 model Corvettes:
the stock machine,
the ZR1,
the Callaway Twin-Turbo,
and the 254 MPH Callaway Sledgehammer.
You can also select to put the car in the dynamo
to get some detailed performance specs.
Once you choose your car, you can select your difficulty,
which affects damage, traction, police involvement and cruise control.
This is nicely detailed in the manual,
so choose whatever seems best for you.
Next you'll choose your opponent,
which appropriately consists of European sports cars
for you to show your American dominance over.
Like the Porche 928,
the Lamborghini Countach,
Ferrari 512 Testarossa,
and the Ferrari F40.
Finally, you choose one course out of four,
with each varying in length.
You are then asked for a bit of information from the manual to start the game,
and then you'll start the race,
shifting into gear and speeding off.
But I've just gotta show you what happens when you enter the wrong thing,
which was likely to happen if you had pirated the disk.
[PC speaker engine revving]
[PC speaker police siren]
Heh heh, stolen Vette.
From here, it's all up to you.
Depending on your destination, you'll have a different course of action.
The starting point and end point are all that really matter,
the rest is completely up to you,
with all of the city of San Fransisco to navigate in order to get there.
You can press H to show the mini-map to help,
which also displays you and your opponent's positions.
Now while the city is completely open to explore,
in between main sections there are highway on-ramps
which leads to these in-between areas which have gameplay reminiscent
of games like The Duel and Street Rod.
There is also a tour mode,
which is useful for seeing different landmarks
to help in your navigation later.
Well-known timeless landmarks,
like the Transamerica Pyramid,
Fisherman's Wharf,
Lombard Street,
the Golden Gate Bridge,
and the gas station.
Depending on the difficulty you chose,
you'll want to really pay attention to the indicators on your dash,
which display things like the speed limit and traffic signals,
as well as cruise control and automatic shifting options to make things simpler.
This is important because there are cops around
and they will track you down and pull you over if you're driving like a maniac,
which is probably going to be all the time.
You can try to outrun them, but if you get caught,
the cool thing is you can select from a list of excuses
for why you're being an idiot,
including needing to take a dump
and the Toyota excuse.
which I think is just friggin' awesome.
Well, you can select from this list unless you're pulled over for vehicular manslaughter,
which is pretty serious stuff.
Yes, this is one of the earlier games I can think of
where you can run over pedestrians,
including some that appear to be nuns.
This of course will veer you off-course
and will damage your car, as will smacking into pretty much anything.
Again, depending on your difficulty, this will show up in the little display here,
showing the affected areas of your Vette.
Eventually, your car won't be able to drive at all,
and you'll need to get it repaired at one of
the local gas stations, if you can make it.
If you can't get it there, just total your car by driving it into a bus.
Or drive it into the bay.
That'll do it.
And it will help support the families
of local tow truck operators.
Another interesting feature is the ability to change your views,
looking left and right from the driver's seat
to an overhead view,
which is very useful for admiring the wonderful filled-polygon objects,
but not much else.
It's really awkward driving in this view and I don't recommend it,
mainly because of the way the car handles.
You steer with the keyboard, joystick or mouse,
but I usually just use the keyboard
since all the other controls other than steering are there
and you kind of need those.
Controls are decent enough, I suppose,
but it can get really hard to control at higher speeds.
And that makes sense to a degree,
but I'm thinking that's also partially because of the frame rate.
Now sure, you can try running it on a faster machine,
but it was made for a 20 MHz 386 at most.
Too much faster than that and the game runs too fast,
and even on my 16 MHz machine, it runs just somewhat choppily,
so the controls feel just a bit clunky at times.
And maybe that's a design decision, I don't know.
The graphics sure are nice, though,
especially for a 1989 EGA game,
so I have no complaints there.
The sound IS a complaint, though.
I've been playing this review with the engine sounds turned off
because with them on...
[awful modulating PC speaker noise]
It's too bad there's no support for anything other than the PC speaker.
AdLib was out at this time and that would have been a nice addition.
And, really, that's about all.
You play the game to experience the city, mostly,
an you either win the race or you don't.
Either way, you enter your initials and play again if you want to.
The only other aspect of this game is multiplayer,
which is done using a modem or null modem serial cable
connecting two PCs.
I haven't tried this yet, but it's supposed to be the exact same game,
just with you playing against a friend instead of the computer.
But hey, that's still completely awesome to me,
And once again, I have to praise Spectrum HoloByte
for their early multiplayer support.
Vette! is one amusing game,
full of innovation and lots of detail
and it's amazing what they fit
into less than 1 MB of space.
Everything from the packaging to the game itself is full of content,
that is at least good for an afternoon's diversion.
But as innovative as its features are,
I just don't see myself going back to play it very often
because once you've explored what it has to offer,
there's no real variety in the gameplay.
I mean, sure, San Francisco is a big place
and there are theoretically lots of ways to race,
but once you find a quick path, there's no real need to go any other way
unless you're just bored.
And when I'm THAT bored, that means I go and play another game.
Oh, well.
I'd still recommend giving it a try
because even though it's pretty simple at its core,
there's a lot of really neat stuff going on in Vette!
And I think anyone with an interest in early racing games
should give it a go.