Quick Look: Fast Racing Neo

Fast!

Racing!

Neo!

http://www.giantbomb.com/fast-racing-league/3030-35189/

Vinny nailed it regarding the field of view. This looks super claustrophobic for a racing game that relies on speed.

Ughhhhh F-Zero GX was so friggin' good....
-edit- Ughhhhh Ikaruga was so friggin' good!

Yeah, sorry Alex: They made FAST racing league for the WII http://www.giantbomb.com/fast-racing-league/3030-35189/

Are the other ship names references to something as well or is it just the 'Fulcon capital' ship?

Okay, so... This is the second game in the series, there are multiple camera distances, and there was an F-Zero game on the N64.

Of course I would rather have a strait up F-zero, but this is pretty solid, especially since there probably isn't an F-zero follow up coming anytime soon. Cool looking game but sadly, since its for Wii U, I'll never experience it.

No sense of style, needs more.

Tracks are nice though.

Must be hard as balls to play a fast racer and talk about anything at all... I remember trying to play Jet Moto while talking to someone and it was just crash city.

The design of the vehicles, and the lack of a ridiculous amount of AI competitors on the track makes this look a lot more like Wipeout than F-Zero to me. Still, I'm happy to try any futuristic racer that doesn't add guns to the mix and focuses on the actual racing.

@wandrecanada: Absolutely. Also, this game is just fucking HARD, even on Subsonic (which is this game's 50cc equivalent). I had to redo cups dozens of times to get 1st and even then it was through the skin of my teeth. Supersonic (100cc) seems absolutely brutal - you basically have to be flawless to get into the top three. I can't really blame Alex for fucking up.

@theotherbrad: There's another company called Spaarc Unlimited which I have to imagine is a nod to Spark Unlimited. I wouldn't be surprised if the other company names were references too.

Not normally that much of a racing guy, but I might pick this up. Despite hardly playing Ikaruga, I am always a fan of games that steal its color-switching mechanic. Worked great for Outland. That game is so goddamn amazing. Housemarque needs to make a sequel.

@phoenix87:Even if there was an F-Zero game I guess you wouldn't experience that either if you refuse to get a Wii U.

I love Wipeout. I am atrocious at Wipeout. I am sad there is no new Wipeout. I am also not sad because I would be bad at it. Never played an F-Zero but I suspect I would be no good at it.

There is a handling stat! If you look at preview videos you can see that there used to be a bar for handling but they apparently changed it to show the actual weight of you 'car' in numbers for the final release...... kind of a weird choice.

yo is this that xtreme g sequel we've all been clamoring for

Two quick points. On top of speed and acceleration, each car has a stat for weight, which seems to play into handling. Also, the little map is coming in an update. One can only guess why it wasn't there at launch, but there you have it.

Also, this is not the first entry in the FAST Racing franchise, it's the second. But don't feel bad, the first game was on WiiWare, so I'm pretty sure I was the only person aware of it's existence at the time.

I've played some WipeOut but not really any F-Zero. I remember WipeOut being fast but also really hard to master when it came to taking turns, which strode the line between frustrating and satisfying. This looks more like what I've seen of that F-Zero Gamecube game, which I was always curious about, even if I'm worried it'll be less interesting in the long run.

I also think that Nintendo would never take one of their long running franchises and make a cheaper, $20 or something, downloadable game, even if that's the sort of thing that makes sense for a title like F-Zero, that has limited appeal, these days.

Lastly, Mario Kart 8's framerate was absolutely solid with just 2 people racing. It didn't get worse until you played with 3 or more people.

Nah, he said narrow FOV, I think it's actually a very wide one (so you see the terrain race past you), leaving the track in front of you very zoomed out.

Agreed that the visual design throws a whole lotta nods to Wipeout, from the look of the ships to the Designers Republic imitation logos and paintjobs everywhere. (Though honestly as much as I adore Wipeout's art design and the work tDR did making that world, it kinda seems pointless to keep doing that stuff because we live in that future now.)

No tilt controls? No sale.

I am saddened that Vinny and Alex didn't know F-Zero X was a thing. It's by far the best F-Zero game Nintendo has put out.

@benmo316: No, I said at the top that it does feature tilt controls.

Alex, they also made F-Zero X on N64.

Edit: Vinny had it covered.

Does the video bit rate seem low? And whats with the border around the video?

@alex: My fault. Missed that part. Then a sale it is!

Get outta here with your research and your facts, this is Quick Look country.

I should emulate fzero x sometime. Dat 60fps.

The closest Nintendo has gotten in "recent" years to a F-Zero game is with Excitetrucks and Excitebots. I actually really liked those games and I could have seen the controls working in in a similar fashion in a F-Zero game. The feel and sense of speed was great. Although some of the gimmicks in the Excitebots version was.. yeh, a a bit gimmicky.

Also: F-ZERO NX MAKE IIT HAPPEN AND I WILL BUY THE NX FIRST DAY.

The weight stat definitely is the handling, it's the trade-off for the Fulcon having such a high top speed and acceleration.

It's pronounced Fast Racing Nyoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

While everyone else says "Boy i want to play this so much! Too bad it's on the NX!!"

It's so good. Destroying other dudes is so good.

Fast Racing Neo looks pretty good, but requires a level of skill that I might want to pass on...

Nintendo asked Critereon to make a F-Zero for Wii U. They turned Nintendo down.

Shin'en did not want to make F-zero but their own thing.

I love that, even three years later, Vinny isn't quite sure what to call the WiiU's controllers.

The border seems to match the overscan area on a TV, maybe the devs optimized the game by not rendering pixels in the overscan.

"Press any button on your preferred controller." Pfft, casual garbage. Real games would tell you to press Start and then let you press anything you want.

In case it's not clear, I'm being dumb.

FAST Racing League for Wii is extremely similar, except switching colors costed you some boost every time, so that was tricky. It was an okay game, but you either succeed or fail to use the mechanics correctly--there wasn't much depth (Alex said the same thing about this game, note).

The ice level was the most fun since the game had really fun ice sliding mechanics that most levels did not take advantage of =p

@brendanwins: Alex was incorrect in stating that there were no other camera angles. There are three different views and I believe Alex was playing with the most close up whereas I prefer the medium range and there is also a camera even further back. The game never mentions this and I don't even think it is listed in the controls, but I was curious and hit the select (or whatever it is called on a Wii U) button just to check and sure enough it cycled through a bunch of different camera angles.

@alex Worth mentioning that for your future enjoyment of this game that the weight stat is actually just a handling stat turned into a number. In earlier builds it actually was a bar that said handling but for whatever reason they changed it and now the higher the weight of the car the worse the handling. Race with the Fulcrum Capital that you were and then do the same race with the ship Vinny was using and you'll immediately see how massive of a difference the stats make. Also, I learned from hours of practice that the way to handle the first track of the third cup is to just use the triggers to steer during those big jumps. Using the Fulcrum especially it is all but impossible to make those jumps using just the analogue stick but using the triggers you can make them all with ease.

@ryudo: really!? Oh those *fuckers*.

maybe it's because I've been playing FF7 all night leading up to watching this QL but this game looks GOOD for a WiiU game.

@engineno9:

Forget Wipeout and F-Zero, this has the floatly, drifty physics of Quantum Redshift (best handling/feeling future racing game of all time) and circuits that look like they're straight out of Extreme-G. Really dig the Ikaruka polarity shifting gimmick in lieu of car combat meachanics, too. Shame it's on the WiiU, as I get the feeling I'd fucking love this game.

Alex needs to buff up his F-Zero and Shin'en knowledge.

F-Zero GX is one of my favorite games of all time and this just looks all wrong. The tracks are too narrow and claustrophobic, the camera is nauseating and way too close to the car, and some rather ugly rendering despite its decent visual fidelity.