Gadget Racers
I took these photos in 2020, right before my home’s electric system started to contemplate killing me and burning all of my belongings. After two weeks or so without consistent electricity, I fell out of my routine. I never forgot about you, however, and I’m back.
This series has the most confusing naming convention I’ve seen. Allow me to illustrate: this release is known as Choro Q HG in Japan, Gadget Racers in America, and Penny Racers in Europe. In Japan, sequels follow a logical numerical sequence but the same is not true in America and Europe. Instead, America calls the next two games Road Trip and Road Trip: Adventure Avenue. Europe calls those two Road Trip Adventure and Gadget Racers. This makes finding Youtube videos and iso’s very difficult.
I like this game a lot. I didn’t know I was going to like it when I first started driving. At their initial tuning, cars are slow, rigid, and unwieldy. However, once you start buying more pieces and learning the difference between front wheel, rear wheel, and four wheel drive, you start to look at the game almost like an RPG. Each course has unique problems to consider. Some have 90 degree turns and narrow hallways; others have wide dirt roads; other tracks even have ramps that you can glide off of if you had the foresight to attach wings to your car.
2021 is the Year of Chibi and it’s only appropriate that I step into this year with chibi cars, possibly the greatest thing you could decide to draw. Seriously, go look at Akira Toriyama’s cars. They are all chibi and all amazing. This game is very kind in that the body of the car has no bearing on its stats. A garbage truck is all the same under the hood as a Porsche. I want to keep going with this PS2 series just so I can play the later games and experience the beauty of an open world of cars living in harmony with one another.