Cyclemania
Combines photographed roads with sprites
Quite why the developers didn't go to a genuinely 3D engine and to 3D models for vehicles, I don't know, but they took a really weird road to the graphics of this game. The circuits are made of actual road pictures, but the vehicles and the racers (motorcycles) are actual sprites put over this weird 3D picture world. I don't know, maybe it's got some weird appeal as to see how this disjoined combination would work. The thing the game looks really as a bad collage of these pictures and these sprites, that don't match style wise, don't match color wise (the road pictures are not treated graphically, so the colors are quite washed, while the sprites are made of saturated colors) and just make up a bad experience. Furthermore, the variety is so loose on these picture roads, in fact, it's almost zero, so you'll get tired even before the weird combination will have made you sick of it. So, yeah, it's mostly ruined, as ambition as it might have been. Go for a genuine cycle racer, GP 500 for instance, classic in build but well done and diverse.
Failed its original idea
Cyclemania is a motorcycle racing video game developed by Accolade, who developed most of the Test Drive games. The developers wanted to bring up a promising motorbike racing game. Unfortunately, all we got was a unappealing racing game that didn't last more than 10 minutes. The game offers 3 modes of gameplay: Quick Race, which is a single race, but with random settings, Single Race, which is just a simple race on a track. and Championship, which is self explanatory. All three of these modes are equally unappealing and didn't give me any reason to play this game for a second time. No, the control are fine and are quite good, it's the design that killed the appeal that this game offers. First of all, the HUD will certainly confuse everyone, because it takes up half the screen and will make you think that you're racing in a first person perspective camera. But not, that whole thing is just there for decoration and you're practically racing in a third person perspective. The tracks themselves aren't too great, it's more like an ongoing film of a road who someone filmed while driving a motorcycle. And what's with the videos when you crash? Are they really necessary? They're more annoying than trying to dodge the oncoming traffic itself. Overall, Cyclemania is a failed motorcycle racing game, that has no appeal at all, horrible HUD design, uninspired tracks and no replay value whatsoever.
