The cars
This is the easiest mode to explain and the one that pretty much everyone will start off with. All you’ve got to do is get around the track and across the finish line as quickly as possible. Simple, eh?
Well, no, actually it isn’t. This is when you’ll first come across the subtleties that have been worked into Sunrise and which make the game much more than just a bog standard racer.
You’d expect in a game with no damage model to be able to just go haring around, the accelerator key glued down and just pinball your way around the tracks, which is all well and good and might sneak you a third place bronze medal but to do better, you’ll have to race much more smoothly and think about when to accelerate, when to brake and just how to ease your car through the fastest racing line.
You basically have three different cars… For your very first race you’ll be in an incredibly quick race car that’ll accelerate like stink, hit speeds up in the warp factor range and corner on rails… but hit the verge or the trackside and it bleeds speed as if you’d thrown out the QE2’s anchor… the trick with this baby is to keep it straight as much as possible and drift it if you have to.
Next up is the mother’s delight, the four-by-four off-roader. With more than a touch of irony, you’ll first encounter this beast in a set of races titled ‘shopping’… So it seems that it’s not just me that thinks these 30 something mum’s should be in something less gas guzzling and far more suitable to the school run and shopping trips…
Anyway, vitriolic rants on the nature of buying completely unsuitable vehicles aside, the 4x4s are an altogether different beast with a wallowing suspension and poor acceleration… plus those high fronts make it difficult for any mum to see over the bonnet (stop it – Ed). Sorry. Ok, the trick with these road monsters, as any mum bouncing them off the verge on the way back from Waitrose will tell you, is to not worry so much about slamming into the sides as they bleed far less speed (I mean it, stop it.-Ed). They are buggers to keep straight though, so a fine touch is needed to ease them through the turns, set yourself up for the next bend and avoid any obstacles. All of this demands a different driving style from the flat out racers you were driving in the last section… and no amount of putting your foot down, closing your eyes and pinging wing mirrors off parked cars as you race for a spot near the door at Debenhams is going to help you (right, that’s the last time!-Ed)
And then you come across the next type of car, which is loosely based on some sort of rear-wheel drive two seater sports car. Now this thing has poor acceleration, suffers from atrocious under-steer and drifts like it has Teflon tyres. After the first two cars, you’ll probably absolutely HATE this one, but in my opinion, it’s the one that requires the most amount of skill to play well. Naturally, the tracks for this little monster are open in places to let you build up speed and then tight and curvy meaning a new driving style of turning early, backing off and then controlling the drift through the turn is needed to see any success.
So, that’s the basic car line-up covered… what about the tracks?
