Le Mans 24 Hours

The most enduring race ever is the 24 hour Le'mans challenge. Don't confuse this with the Playstation game of the same name, as the two are not related at all. Le'mans on Dreamcast is a showcase game.

Le'mans is an all out racing game, none of this ‘get a license malarkey’, here you have to rely on your actual driving talents. Just pick up the pad and race.

      Le'mans has a very distinctive graphic design, all the cars are rendered well with some very crisp angular edges. Also something which I often dislike in racing games does not apply to Le'mans.

Basically the draw distance in Le'mans is amazing. For the first time you can actually use the incar view and be a challenge to the other competitors. The draw distance seems to stretch for miles just like in real life!

For the real anal responsive…sorry retentive among you, Le'mans offers a real time 24 hour race, though whether anyone would use this feature is questionable. Le'mans enthusiast's or 'johny no friends' will no doubt be excited by this, but fortunately Le'mans also caters for the rest of us, giving us race options based on laps or minutes.

Le'mans also has some excellent multiplayer modes. First we have the split screen mode. Here you can race head to head with your friends, best of all the game is not compromised through this.

However with the four-player mode the game does slow down. This is only noticeable because of the speed the game plays in single player. When I say 'slow down' I don't mean attack of the jerkies, but a constant slower game pace. Everything still moves at a good pace, it is just like…noticeable.

Le'mans falls into the 'arcade' racing game camp. Saying this though, does not mean that you can powerslide around every corner and come in first place. The CPU cars are exceptional, as they will always take the fastest line when they take a corner. So many other games allow you to go speeding down the inside and effectively carve up the opposition and take their position, but in Le'mans dirty tactics like this do not work. If there is negative points to be found in Le'mans then it would have to be the tracks, as they don't look very exciting. But as they are based on the actual tracks we could not have some exciting structures just placed on the trackside.

Le'mans sound is your standard driving fare. Good engine noises and suitable in game music compliment this great game. Everyone who is anyone after a good racing game which looks good and plays well should go for Le'mans.

Out of the current Dreamcast crop of [serious] racing games; i.e. MS-R; Sega GT; Sega Rally 2; and even Ferrari F355. Le'mans is the game of choice. The simple premise to drive fast and well to win works so well. Even when the game is beaten the game will call you back to beat your high scores.  

Sam Smith

Graphics	8	Good graphics which successfully capture the Le'mans 24 hour race.
Sound	7	Good engine noises and suitably loud crashes.
Gameplay	8	The main game will entertain you for a while, but you will keep coming back to beat your high scores.
Lifespan	7	This game will last for ages as it is a pure racing game which everyone likes. Just pick up the pad and race!
Overall	7.5/10

"Le Mans - The fastest game ever!"

By Michael Rogers

24 hours, non-stop, of cars racing round a circuit… how the heck can anyone make that into an interesting game??? Enter Melbourne House with Le Mans 24 Hours and their run-of-the-mill typically licensed racer…or is it? Obviously the most striking thing about Le Mans 24 Hours is the graphics. Yup, this game is pushing more polygons per second than Sega thought their white box was capable of, and boy does it show! Containing the best lighting effects I have ever seen on the Dreamcast, and only topped by Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2, this game is one hell of a looker!

But, we don’t just want graphics in a game! It’s also important that it plays well, with Le Mans 24 hours failing to disappoint in this department too! Was F355 just too realistic for you? Want more realism than the screeching power slides of Daytona? Le Mans 24 strikes the chord between the two! Offering all the expected physics, speed and the like that you’d expect from a game to make it realistic, but far more forgiving than F355 - you can make mistakes, you can ram the other cars off the track and keep going yourself - this game appeals to racing fanatics and arcade junkies alike!

Although if you’re man enough (translation: MAD enough) to do the full 24 hour race, you wouldn’t go into either of those categories. Well I say mad… Thankfully Infogrames have given us the options to save the progress of the race each time you go into the pits.

Sound wise, the engines roar (and for once it can be plural as you can hear all the other cars screaming away as well as your own car, unlike F355 and Daytona), there are nice little effects such as the crowd cheering and um…blowing their horns (meant in a non rude way of course!)…also, there is the announcer as you speed faster than Sonic (well maybe not quite that fast) through the home straight. The music is nice, and really gives the game a tranquil feel, unless you chose the almost unbearable rock radio station (yes, there are 2 radio stations in the game), and helps you concentrate on the race at hand as it isn’t intrusive to the game and just plays away gently in the background.

Overall, Le Mans 24 Hours is a very polished game and now that it is retailing for less than £15 in some independent stores, I can’t think of a reason not to add this little gem into your collection. Definitely up there with MSR, F355 and Daytona, I’d even go as far as to say it was above them all! An excellent racer clearly designed to appeal to everyone.

Overall: 8.5/10

Slick, polished, and stylish! Racers don’t get much better than this!

-- "Lemans? I thought they were a fruit!" 

Reviewer:

Sam

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