Metropolis Street Racer

Games test you in many different ways. Gradually tougher opponents to fight. Obstacles that are trickier to overcome. Puzzles that become more complex. So on and so on. Metropolis Street Racer is its own unique animal. Metropolis Street Racer is a brutally difficult game; genuinely among the hardest games I've ever played. But what makes this game so unique in its difficulty is that the enemies or obstacles of a typical video game have been replaced by something far worse: You.

You, the Player, are the protagonist and antagonist.

As the name implies, Metropolis Street Racer is, well, a racing game. A fairly late release for the Dreamcast (really, anything beyond the Summer of 2000 would be considered "late" as far as the Dreamcast is considered). It begins with one of the coolest features I've ever seen in a game, and wonder why it hasn't been used in a racing game since: double checking the time zone that you live in, as the day/night cycle for the in-game street races are based off of the Dreamcast's internal clock. In other words, me playing this game at 5 PM in Colorado will mean that the courses in San Francisco will take place at 3 PM, while the courses in London will be at 12 AM, and the courses in Tokyo will be at 8 AM. Just one of the many nice accoutrements that MSR has. MSR also features a soundtrack composed by Richard Jacques, with TJ Davis returning to do vocals, meaning that we have a Sonic R reunion here.

While the extra details are nice, and definitely add up to make the game better, they are still just extra details. What matters the most in Metropolis Street Racer are the Metropolis Street Races. This is a game about putting rubber to the road in a variety of ways. The game presents you with a series of challenges: time trials, beating lap times, regular races against multiple other cars, or a more personal one on one contest. Getting a new car, even your starter, has to be earned by beating a preset lap time in a test drive. Everything must be earned in MSR. Nothing is handed to you, no shortcut to the top by saving in-game money for a better vehicle, none of that.

You are scored after every event based on three things: Skill, Style, and Penalties. This scoring is very harsh. You are expected to take every corner like a master. You need to get your racing lines down to a science. You don't even get the comfort that other games like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport will give you, the comfort that all of your mistakes will cease to matter the second you beat a time or win a podium. If you bump into walls or other cars like a drunkard at a demolition derby, your score will be pitifully low, even if you place 1st. It doesn't matter, you got a hollow victory. Now go do it again, and do it right this time! You need that score (referred to in-game as "Kudos"), as it is the only way you can make progress to the next series of races and challenges. You can finish every single event in a given level, and you still can't get to the next tier if you don't have the prerequisite number of Kudos.

MSR does not fuck around. There's no quick restart in the pause menu. If you make a mistake, you have to live with it. You must own every failure, every penalty, every regrettable drift around a tight corner that left you fishtailing and losing speed, every regrettable drift that you took when simply decelerating would have been a better option. When you replay a previous event to try and rectify your previous effort, you gamble the score you had previously set. If you wind up getting a lower score the next time around, that's the new record, your old one erased from the record book. You'll have to do it again and hope you don't mess it up. Again, and again, and again, and again, until you get it right. There's no "rubberbanding" with the other cars, no sudden obstacles that appear on the track, there is only you and your skill, and you only have yourself to blame. No excuses, no bull shit. You are the Player, and you are also the Challenge. My own inadequacies and a lack of proper practice are the real fight.

What made me so addicted to playing this game is that, while my failures are my own, so too are my successes. Every win and every triumph are all the more satsifying. Metropolis Street Racer is frustrating and maddening, and it is also deeply rewarding. It feels good to hit a perfect drift on a hairpin turn. It feels good to finally beat that Astra Coupe that was getting a ten second lead against me for so long in a head-to-head race. It feels good to watch your point tally after a race shoot up at a high speed. The closest comparison I can make for how MSR makes me feel would be a fighting game or a Gradius-style shooter. That sense of elation at each step taken towards mastery of mechanics, or a deeper understanding of the competitive edge. MSR is not a game you can simply pick up for a little while to mess around with. MSR is a game you have to be ready to do some work for. But by putting in the work, you will be rewarded in kind. My time has not been wasted by this game, and it will continue to not be wasted when I play this again in the future.

It should also be pointed out that Metropolis Street Racer is home to one of the most delightfully hokey rap songs I've ever heard.