''Cruis'n Exotica'' is a 1999

racing game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a motor racing, racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more re ...

developed and published by

Midway Games Midway Games Inc. (formerly Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known simply as Midway) was an American video game company that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (franchise), Ra ...

for arcades. The game is a sequel to '' Cruis'n World'' and is the third entry in

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

's ''

Cruis'n ''Cruis'n'' is a series of racing video games created by Eugene Jarvis and owned by Nintendo. Midway Games published various installments under license from Nintendo. The series distinguishes itself from other racing games with its over-the-to ...

'' series. A port to the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

developed by Gratuitous Games was released in 2000, along with a

Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...

version developed by Crawfish Interactive.

Gameplay

''Cruis'n Exotica'' plays similarly to the previous games in the series, but it adds a

PIN A pin is a device, typically pointed, used for fastening objects or fabrics together. Pins can have the following sorts of body: *a shaft of a rigid inflexible material meant to be inserted in a slot, groove, or hole (as with pivots, hinges, an ...

system to track progress like ''

San Francisco Rush 2049 ''San Francisco Rush 2049'' is a 1999 racing video game developed and manufactured by Atari Games for Arcade game, arcades, later ported to home systems. It is the third game in the ''Rush (video game series), Rush'' series as the sequel to ''Sa ...

''. The levels take place in exotic locations in the universe, such as

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

The Amazon jungle The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

with dinosaurs,

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...

and the surface of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. The game also allows a player to choose a driver visible onscreen during races, including a

Martian Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celes ...

, a

baby In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to Juvenile (orga ...

, a

clown A clown is a person who performs physical comedy and arts in an Improvisational theatre#Comedy, open-ended fashion, typically while wearing distinct cosmetics, makeup or costume, costuming and reversing social norm, folkway-norms. The art of ...

, and a

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

. The Nintendo 64 version is similar to its arcade counterpart, with changes being made to race track layouts, lack of fully licensed vehicles, and more hidden vehicles.

Reception

The home ports of the game were met with very mixed reception.

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

and

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

gave it a score of 55.87% and 43 out of 100 for the Nintendo 64 version, and 48% for the Game Boy Color version. ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

'' noted that the Nintendo 64 version "runs smoothly, but suffers from a tremendous level of draw-in. This visual hitch can make it difficult to navigate the road, a problem that becomes particularly potent when racing friends in the multiplayer mode. Another concern is replay value: the first 10 minutes or so really hook you in, but when you get the hang of the control, the challenge disappears, and so does the fun". Brad Shoemaker of

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

wrote about the Nintendo 64 version: "The game's graphics run quite smoothly on a platform that's hardly renowned for smooth graphics. Unfortunately, this smoothness comes at a price - Exotica's cars and tracks lack detail. The game looks decent, but it won't blow your mind". Shoemaker also wrote that the game "requires very little skill or finesse, but for the casual gamer who doesn't want to commit lots of time to racing a track, that's not really a bad thing". Cory D. Lewis of

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

wrote the Nintendo 64 version featured nearly identical gameplay to its predecessors, saying "that right there spells certain doom for this latest title. Once again we find only a few extra little touches to help differentiate this sequel as something 'new' for gamers". Lewis wrote the game would become boring "unless you are extremely young or easily impressed". Lewis praised the game's framerate, but criticized its graphics, writing: "Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck. We have one word to describe these visuals, and you've just heard it four times in a row". Lewis offered some praise for the game's music, but criticized its sound effects, and compared the game to other Midway racing games such as '' Stunt Racer 64'' and ''

'': "Except that for what each of these games does well, Exotica simply does the complete opposite and truly disappoints in comparison". Frank Provo of GameSpot wrote that the Game Boy Color version "bears only a passing resemblance to its arcade and console counterparts". Provo criticized the game's

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and its limited sounds, including its "bland" engine effects and "tinny rhythm and blues music" and noted the game has "a speedy frame rate and obstacle-filled backgrounds, albeit at the cost of an overall grainy veneer and two-tone vehicle sprites". Provo wrote despite the game's flaws, there "is never any doubt that you're playing a Cruis'n game". IGN's Craig Harris, who reviewed the Game Boy Color version, wrote that "as impressive as the game engine is, the game is just flat-out bland". Harris criticized the game's artificial intelligence and its Cruis'n Freestyle mode, writing "where's the incentive to play the circuit mode if you can race ''all'' the tracks in a separate mode? That's not exactly smart planning. ��the replay factor is destroyed simply by the inclusion of one single mode that really didn't need to be there".

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1999 video games Arcade video games Game Boy Color games Nintendo 64 games Cruis'n Video games developed in the United States Crawfish Interactive games Multiplayer and single-player video games Gratuitous Games games Midway video games Video games set in South Korea Video games about dinosaurs