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Penny Racers JP release: 30th June 1998 NA release: 4th February 1999 PAL release: 5th March 1999 Developer: Locomotive Corporation Publisher: Takara (JP), THQ (NA/PAL) N64 Magazine Score: 58% Known as Choro-Q in Japan, this racing game is base on a series of pullback toy cars. The all have a cute deformed style and the racing game brings that to life, with upgradable cars and weapons to use against other racers. The customisation and upgrades are a key part of Penny Racers. There’s a lot of different vehicles to choose from and you can alter the with colours and different components – some change your stats and others alter your appearance. As you finish races, the top three racers can steal components from the bottom three racers. While the game is cute and charming, the actual racing is unfortunately not much fun. It takes ages to get up to full speed and other racers coming near you will knock you about. I also found my car to just roll over a lot, particularly on long turns and I really couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong. I eventually learned to anticipate the rolls so I could plan the quick turns and performed fairly well – unless I got stuck in the middle of the pack and bashed about by others. There’s also a nice track editor in the game, with a few options for different kinds of straights, turns and curves. Unfortunately, there’s only one (fairly hideous) style to the track, so they’ll all look the same, but it’s a really nice feature. I wish I could enjoy Penny Racers more than I did, the setting is adorable and I like some of the ideas. Hopefully the sequel will sort out some of the issues. Remake or remaster? There’s a bunch of Choro-Q games, so some kind of compilation could be interesting – just with improved gameplay. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Penny Racers.

I watched it with my girlfriend over the weekend. Quite disturbing, which goes to show how well made it is. We were definitely asking ourselves how much of it was true to Richard Gadd's personal experience. There was so much to unpack there.

Trailer from tonight's event: Demo dropping in June, probably an Xbox Games Showcase shadow drop? Still so funny to me how they've got their name all over this game to the extent that they have, such as having them as the only console in the title for the above trailer: Box art is a bit busy, very art school-y with how it utilises the title I feel, but idk, I kind of like it? The top part especially.  Think I'm going to need to spend this summer making sure I'm caught up on JRPGs ahead of this launching in October 

October 11th! Confirmed during the livestream: As someone who has fallen behind on the slate of newly released RPGs already this year... (please be a relatively quiet summer pleaseeeeee)

Anyone else checked out Baby Reindeer? One of the most fascinating character pieces I've seen in a long time.