Speed Kings | DJcube

Frantic arcade motorbike racing.

NA release: 28th May 2003
EU release: 4th July 2003
JP release: N/A
Developer: Climax London
Publisher: Acclaim
NGC Magazine Score: 57%
Mods Used: None

A motorcycle racer with stunts and dangerous driving. The more dangerous you drive, the more boost you get. It sounds similar to Burnout but, other than it being an arcade-style racer, it’s very different. There’s something about Speed Kings that makes it feel like it actually came from the arcade – perhaps it’s how obstacles show up just in time for the leader of the race every single time.

Speed Kings gives you two brake buttons, with the rear break being the main one needed for helping you round corners. The front brake is more for stunts such as slides, wheelies, surfing and headstands. Performing enough stunts will grant you a very powerful, but difficult to control boost, which means that the slightest hit will cause you to crash.

Unfortunately, the handling isn’t quite smooth enough to enable you to swerve around the traffic or even some of the obstacles and you will crash. A lot. The rubber-banding means that crashing is not a huge issue, but it also means that you’re not rewarded when you do manage to drive well, as racers will still be on your tail. Being in first place also means that lorries will pull out in front of you for you to power-slide under, which is cool the first time then very quickly gets annoying.

The game is fun for a while, but as you get better bikes, they get more fragile and have worse handling, and the crashes often feel like they’re beyond your control rather than something you did wrong. There’s plenty of courses, all based on different cities (London is raining, obviously), so it’s a shame the core racing isn’t that great.