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Title Team Suzuki
Game Type Driving
Company Gremlin
Players 1
Compatibility All (With Patch)
HD Installable Yes (With Patch)
Submission Angus Manwaring Profiled Reviewer

Review
Team Suzuki was the first of the three main Amiga polygon based 3D
motorcycle games, the others being Psygnosis' Redzone and Thalion's No
Second Prize. Superficially it appears very similar to Redzone, although a
closer inspection reveals that both the graphics and sound in the Pygnosis
offering are superior. Where Team Suzuki does score crucially over Redzone
though is in the greater speed of the frame update. This makes Team Suzuki
far more playable, although in my opinion, less so than the undisputed
king of the genre, No Second Prize.

Enough comparison, what does Team Suzuki actually offer? Well, after some
fairly good funky, Shaft-like intro music, you are given a choice of a
practice session, a single race, or a full season. You can also choose
between 125cc (automatic gears), 250cc or 500cc bikes. You can define how
many laps a race lasts, and there are 16 different tracks to choose from.
The various tracks do offer some variety but the 3D environment could not
be described as lush. Sound is adequate, but not particuarly inspired. The
engine sound consists of an underlying rumble and a higher pitched tone
that corresponds with how you're treating the throttle. Not bad, but not
great either. The 'damage' sample is rather tinny and annoying.

The racing itself is quite playable, and improves as you get to know the
circuits. You can speed things up slightly by removing your dashboard, and
having invisible riders. Avoiding the other bikes is very difficult,
especially when you're attempting to overtake them, and they don't seem to
worry about you in the slightest. You incur damage by colliding with the
other bikes or coming off the track. Its a bit odd to see your damage
percentage building up when you've simply cut across a few feet of grass
in an effort to avoid another rider, but I suppose its not a major fault.
On the bright side, you can see 'your' hands as you ride, and the
animation for when you change the throttle or brake is quite nicely done.
Over a short race, five laps for example, the game isn't too difficult,
because your damage can be kept down to acceptable amounts. Longer races
will clearly be more difficult though, so there's some longer term
challenge on offer. There are a variety of detached viewpoints available,
as well as a handy over the shoulder view accessed with a touch of the
spacebar.

Overall Team Suzuki offers a pretty fast 3D engine (on a 68000 processor)
and a fairly playable game. When it was released it was well in advance of
any similar game, and this didn't really change in a year later when
Redzone was released. Unfortunately it has not been possible to improve
the speed vastly on the WHDLoad patch, but it still provides access to a
pretty fair reasonable game and this is very welcome.