 A racing game from Square!
What the hell are they thinking? Actually that's probably what some gamers ARE thinking ;) Well it looks like their racing game named Type-S will be their first offering for Sony's next generation system.
But don't forget, Square isn't totally green on how to make a racing game.
Way back in the NES days they had Rad Racer and a sequel which were big hits.
Unfortunately, Square's latest offering for this genre was a flop. Some game called Racing Lagoon was released for the PSX in Japan last year that apparently had RPG elements? Anyway it failed but this new game their coming out with looks far more promising.
 Type-S has been in development for about a year by Escape (a subsidiary of Square). They are putting a lot of resources into this game and Square acquired licenses from big Japanese car manufactures Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Honda, and Mitsubishi so we'll be seeing a lot of cars from these companies in the game. The main focus of Type-S is to deliver an ultra realistic racing simulation experience. One of the ways this will be done is by using a cockpit view inside the car. The dash and steering wheel (including your hands) are also visible. And instead of your view being limited to only the front window, your view of the racetrack is now influenced by where the driver is looking. In other words when you take a turn you can see out of the front and part of the side window as well. This should give players a much better perspective of the road ahead.
The cars in the game look to be detailed in every way. Some car statistics available in the car selection menu are height, width, length, maximum power, maximum torque, power to weight ratio and there is also a graph that provides a visual readout of each car's performance. Plus there are different classes of cars as well. As far as tracks go, most of them will probably be in Japan.
Thus far two tracks are known, they are the Suzuka Circuit and Tsukuda Circuit.
 For a racing game to stand out on the PS2 it needs to have some bitchin graphics to go along with superb gameplay and Type-S does not look to disappoint. However at this point in time I don't think it quite matches up to the graphical beauty of GT2000, but it's close. The car models look very accurately designed and detailed although some are a bit blurry. I also noticed that the inside car view was not that sharp either but these little problems will no doubt be worked by the time it's finished.
One thing that they do have nailed is the environmental effect. Just the right amount of lighting on the cars and great reflections on the surfaces. In one screen shot I even saw the reflection of clouds on the hood!
The tracks look awesome too, including nice road textures and faded, dirty lines and loose dirt on the edges of the tracks that add to the incredible realism of the game.
Type-S definitely has potential to become a hit but it's going to take something special for it to hope to compete with the big boys GT2000 and Ridge Racer V. If the cockpit type of view and driver perspective is implemented successfully this game may actually bring some innovation to the racing genre.
Whatever the case, Square's racer will be ready for the showdown at the launch in North America.
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Expected Release Date:
Spring 2000 (Japan)
Developer / Publisher:
Escape / Square
Players:
2?
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