Auto Modellista is a racing game

Racing game

A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...

 developed and published by Capcom

Capcom

is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...

, first released on Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

 PlayStation 2

PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

, and subsequently, on Nintendo GameCube

Nintendo GameCube

The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...

 and Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 Xbox

Xbox

The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...

. It was Capcom's first and last driving game for fourteen years since the arcade game

Arcade game

An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...

 F-1 Dream, but they had previously distributed Ridge Racer 2

Ridge Racer 2

This article is about the classic game. For the modern game for PSP, see Ridge Racer 2 is a racing game created by Namco. It was released in Japan in 1994 for the Namco System 22 arcade platform. It is the second title in the Ridge Racer series.More of an upgrade than a complete sequel, Ridge...

 for the US market and both Test Drive 5

Test Drive 5

Test Drive 5 is a cross-platform racing game, released on the PlayStation and PC in 1998. It is the fifth entry in the Test Drive series of video games.-Tracks:There are 18 tracks in the game, with 17 real-world tracks, plus one fictional circuit....

 and Test Drive: Off-Road 2 (developed by Pitbull Syndicate

Pitbull Syndicate

Midway Studios - Newcastle was a video game developer based in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear in the United Kingdom.-History:...

) for the Japanese market.

Description

The game marked itself apart from others of the same genre with cel-shaded graphics

Cel-shaded animation

Cel-shaded animation is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn. Cel-shading is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon. It is a somewhat recent addition to computer graphics, most commonly turning up in video games...

, which gave them a hand-drawn and cartoon-like appearance. Despite its unique style, the game suffered from poor handling dynamics, and ultimately turned out to be a critical and commercial failure. In 2003, to address the problems cited by the Japanese and European PS2 versions, Capcom reworked the game and added American cars initially for the North American market, titled as Auto Modellista: US Tuned. This was Capcom's attempt to sway North American players into buying the game, but it still suffered from the same handling dynamics of the first edition. The US Tuned version would be ported as a GameCube and Xbox game, with the latter due for release in Europe on April 2004, but distributors eventually decided not to honour, predicting sales of the game were going to be poor. The game was superseded by Circus Drive (known as Group S Challenge outside Japan), but Capcom has not been involved with driving games since.

Gameplay

Auto Modellista attempts to be a very technical racing game, with an immense amount of available parts and settings for the selection of cars provided to the player. Various aspects of each car can be tuned, allowing the player to tweak the performance of the car.

In the Garage mode (the main single-player mode), the player is granted the ability to select one of four tire types which affect road grip in regard to the weather conditions on the race track (for example, the "Semi-Slick Tires" provide maximum speed and grip in dry weather, but suffer in rain). Other options include brakes (which determine braking efficiency), suspension, Turbines, Mufflers, Computer (determines the car's ability to accept upgrades later in the game), the engine, "Final Gear", and Weight Reduction.

Auto Modellista's customisation options also extends to visual enhancements, allowing the player to choose from many different color combinations, hood and spoiler types, plus the ability to add badges, stickers and even create license plates.

A large aspect of the game was its online mode, with onlines races supporting up to 8 players. This functionality (and many of the game modes relating to it) were removed from the original US and European releases, but was added back into the US Tuned editions of the game. The online mode of Auto Modellista has been terminated, and cannot be used in any versions of the game.

Reception

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