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Right, after getting this game I decided it was worth me writing a review about. I'm sorry to say that this game even came into existance as it's perhaps the worst racing game I've ever played.
Let me give you a link to more information about it with screenshots too on the official valusoft page: http://www.valu-soft.com/products/initialdmtnveg.html
So now you can see how bad it looks and how absolutely awful the American edition of Initial D is.. If you're a fan of Initial D as I am I'm sure you can see just how awful the renaming of Initial D for the American market is, and how awful this bloody game is.. if you can call it a game.
Anyway I installed it to the godawful sound of the Initial D "Drive, Drift, Dream" song with absolutely hideous vocals... Once installed it asked me to reboot which I denied as always.. I loaded up the pdf manual first (doesnt come with a paper manual afaik). The manual was two pages long and one of those was detailing the specs... useless.
I loaded the game up and went through the options, 1024x768 is the max resolution you can run the game in, you can turn anti aliasing on and I advise all those who play this game to do just that (even if you have a Cirrus Logic 5434GL graphics card from 1991). I don't think you'll receive any performance points for doing it as the game doesnt exactly have 'stunning' graphics, aside from the eye bleeding kind.
I started a 'race' (only two options race and quick race) which appears to be the 'simulation' mode of the game. My first race was up against "Cole" (actual name Iketani for those who don't already know this). My "twin cam 86" (called that in the game) out accelerated his S13 from the line and I never saw him after that. The handling of the cars is practically non existant, the left/right functions should be renamed 'jerk left/right' as if you tap one or the other the car jerks violently in either direction. This is much like the jerking in the drag mode of NFSU, however the drag mode of NFSU even though it's poor is 100 times superior to the full race mode of IDMV. I raced a few more times laughing at the awful soundtrack and poor handling, drifting is non existant in this game. There are two real ways to drive in this game, forwards and 'skid'. Forwards is pretty much just that... skid is where you try to turn or use the handbrake and the car turns 90degrees but continues heading the direction you were already heading. Only the outer walls seem to be able to assist you turning, not even the gutters help in any way!!
So anyway as I am so disgusted with this godawful game I decided to look at the game files to see how well it was made, not surprisingly I found it was made in such an amateur way. Annotations to files such as "im going to add car details to these files 23/9/03" etc. very poor imo.
The game is 160mb big and roughly 300 when installed... the music is added in the ogg vorbis format (.ogg) which plays fine quality in Winamp and is infact a good codec (especially for space). I can't quite see why they used .ogg because they werent exactly needing the space on the CD, they could have probably used .wav's and still had space left over. I explored the .wav soundfiles too and they are just disgusting... with crappy quotes from the Americanised version of Initial D which was remade by TokyoPop.
All in all this game is not worth buying under any circumstances, go out and buy a McDonalds and have money left over. Even a McDonalds is worth more than this game, you may as well hand over your $19.99 to the McDonalds cashier for one meal as thanks for the fact you didn't buy or play this hideous game.
Before writing this review I stumbled on a thread containing a link to a shockwave game that is based on Initial D RC Cars, on the mountains etc. I played this game just now and have come to the conclusion it's superior to IDMV in basically every way. It's far smaller, it's free, the car handling is far more realistic and less 'gimped', the graphics are better although in a small window and you can actually gutter run.. oh and the music even though its a looped beat is 100 times superior to the music in IDMV...
Here is a link to that Shockwave game:
http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/zipzapsse
That's basically the end of the review, don't buy this game, don't even download it.. you'll only want to ask for a refund even though you didn't pay for it.
For those of you who have only seen the Americanised Initial D which was butchered by Tokyopop, I strongly advise you to get obtaining the original Japanese versions. These are far better in every way, proper character names, proper music, proper language they used and proper references to cars and the driving styles they use.
For those of you who have seen the proper Initial D, are fans and/or have played the other Initial D games made by Sega, stick to those and avert your eyes from this trash
I'd rate this game but I'm sure you can already guess it gets 0/10 for everything. Please also remember this game was in development for a one year time period by a team of around 20-25 people. When I think of what KY and PD can achieve in a month I really do begin to wonder what the hell Valusoft and Canopy games did for most of that year... KY has more talent in his little finger than the entire dev studio of Valusoft/Canopy put together...
Anyway that's the end of my review, hope you enjoyed it somewhat
Let me give you a link to more information about it with screenshots too on the official valusoft page: http://www.valu-soft.com/products/initialdmtnveg.html
So now you can see how bad it looks and how absolutely awful the American edition of Initial D is.. If you're a fan of Initial D as I am I'm sure you can see just how awful the renaming of Initial D for the American market is, and how awful this bloody game is.. if you can call it a game.
Anyway I installed it to the godawful sound of the Initial D "Drive, Drift, Dream" song with absolutely hideous vocals... Once installed it asked me to reboot which I denied as always.. I loaded up the pdf manual first (doesnt come with a paper manual afaik). The manual was two pages long and one of those was detailing the specs... useless.
I loaded the game up and went through the options, 1024x768 is the max resolution you can run the game in, you can turn anti aliasing on and I advise all those who play this game to do just that (even if you have a Cirrus Logic 5434GL graphics card from 1991). I don't think you'll receive any performance points for doing it as the game doesnt exactly have 'stunning' graphics, aside from the eye bleeding kind.
I started a 'race' (only two options race and quick race) which appears to be the 'simulation' mode of the game. My first race was up against "Cole" (actual name Iketani for those who don't already know this). My "twin cam 86" (called that in the game) out accelerated his S13 from the line and I never saw him after that. The handling of the cars is practically non existant, the left/right functions should be renamed 'jerk left/right' as if you tap one or the other the car jerks violently in either direction. This is much like the jerking in the drag mode of NFSU, however the drag mode of NFSU even though it's poor is 100 times superior to the full race mode of IDMV. I raced a few more times laughing at the awful soundtrack and poor handling, drifting is non existant in this game. There are two real ways to drive in this game, forwards and 'skid'. Forwards is pretty much just that... skid is where you try to turn or use the handbrake and the car turns 90degrees but continues heading the direction you were already heading. Only the outer walls seem to be able to assist you turning, not even the gutters help in any way!!
So anyway as I am so disgusted with this godawful game I decided to look at the game files to see how well it was made, not surprisingly I found it was made in such an amateur way. Annotations to files such as "im going to add car details to these files 23/9/03" etc. very poor imo.
The game is 160mb big and roughly 300 when installed... the music is added in the ogg vorbis format (.ogg) which plays fine quality in Winamp and is infact a good codec (especially for space). I can't quite see why they used .ogg because they werent exactly needing the space on the CD, they could have probably used .wav's and still had space left over. I explored the .wav soundfiles too and they are just disgusting... with crappy quotes from the Americanised version of Initial D which was remade by TokyoPop.
All in all this game is not worth buying under any circumstances, go out and buy a McDonalds and have money left over. Even a McDonalds is worth more than this game, you may as well hand over your $19.99 to the McDonalds cashier for one meal as thanks for the fact you didn't buy or play this hideous game.
Before writing this review I stumbled on a thread containing a link to a shockwave game that is based on Initial D RC Cars, on the mountains etc. I played this game just now and have come to the conclusion it's superior to IDMV in basically every way. It's far smaller, it's free, the car handling is far more realistic and less 'gimped', the graphics are better although in a small window and you can actually gutter run.. oh and the music even though its a looped beat is 100 times superior to the music in IDMV...
Here is a link to that Shockwave game:
http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/zipzapsse
That's basically the end of the review, don't buy this game, don't even download it.. you'll only want to ask for a refund even though you didn't pay for it.
For those of you who have only seen the Americanised Initial D which was butchered by Tokyopop, I strongly advise you to get obtaining the original Japanese versions. These are far better in every way, proper character names, proper music, proper language they used and proper references to cars and the driving styles they use.
For those of you who have seen the proper Initial D, are fans and/or have played the other Initial D games made by Sega, stick to those and avert your eyes from this trash
I'd rate this game but I'm sure you can already guess it gets 0/10 for everything. Please also remember this game was in development for a one year time period by a team of around 20-25 people. When I think of what KY and PD can achieve in a month I really do begin to wonder what the hell Valusoft and Canopy games did for most of that year... KY has more talent in his little finger than the entire dev studio of Valusoft/Canopy put together...
Anyway that's the end of my review, hope you enjoyed it somewhat
