The Queen Mother of cars meets the All-Powerful King of Arcade Games on the Undisputed Champion of Videogame Consoles with Ferrarri 355 Challenge for the Sega Dreamcast. It's being brought to the United States by Acclaim but being developed by Sega's powerful AM2 development studios.
Challenge first zoomed into arcades and quickly won -- pardon the pun -- acclaim for its solid racing play and highly detailed polygon models. All the cars, tracks, and backgrounds appear seamless, and even the beautiful Sega GT and Metropolis Street Racer may not be able to compete with Challenge in terms of graphics.
Acclaim showed off arcade versions of the game at May's big E3 videogame show and issued the declaration that its Dreamcast version will be muy perfecto. The game will hold six different courses, each highlighting a series of well-detailed peaks and valleys. Players will have the opportunity to race their Ferraris past grandstands filled with cheering fans on tracks such as Long Beach, Montegi, Suzuki Short, Sugo, and Monza.
Three gameplay modes allow racers to train, test their driving skills and do a pedal-to-the-metal sprint for glory. There's an option to compete in a race championship wherein players race through all circuits compiling points; a single-player feature that allows for no time limit and modified car settings; and a two-player, split-screen contest. All the modes and options may be further modified by selecting from three different difficulty levels (novice, intermediate and simulator), each of which will dramatically affect a car's handling and performance. Special "assist functions" will also be added to mix, allowing players to tamper with their car's stability and traction control as well as implement anti-lock breaks or intelligent braking.
Network play will not be implemented, sadly, but Acclaim will allow Challenge players to go online to register their game scores and see how they stack up against other Ferrari drivers across the world. Call no online play a mere speed bump on the road of life, especially if this little beauty delivers the way everyone thinks it should.
Acclaim has promised to take Ferrarri 355 Challenge on the road. Public relations flacks for the company will be showing off unfinished versions of the game later this month, and a more accurate assessment of the game's wonderfulness will be issued then. A November release is planned, and we'd be glad to celebrate Thanksgiving with some gluttony and a Dreamcast controller, while visions of Ferraris dance in our heads -- and on some type of monstrous, mother-choking screen.