Looking back, I’m not sure why I bought Wave Race. I don’t really get into racing games that much, and I certainly don’t know anything about Jetskis. I guess I was just mesmerized by the neat water effects and the NOT AT ALL ANNOYING announcer who repeats the same half-dozen clips every few seconds and is completely un-turn-off-able.
The game is, then, about racing personal watercraft around various courses. Each one has its own water conditions, layout, and setting. You and a few other schmucks get to ride around, trying to pass the giant balloons on the proper sides. See, if you pass the balloons on the wrong side too many times, you lose. If you go outside the track boundaries, you lose. And if you don’t finish the race fast enough… erm… you lose.
The difficulty in controlling the Jetskis is all over the place. It’s tough to get traction on water, so you’re always slipping and sliding around all over the place. You have to learn the nuances of the control scheme like briefly letting off the gas, turning, and then jamming on the gas again when you hit the proper angle. Once you finally master that little nugget, you get thrown into courses where there is actual turbulence in the water. These make giant waves that throw you into the air, throwing off your course, killing your momentum, and making you lose. You’re supposed to be able to somehow press a direction on the control stick and you will go through the waves… or skip over the tops of them… or something else entirely. I don’t really know because I couldn’t ever do it properly. I would do pretty well until the weather kicked in, then I just couldn’t handle the ridiculous amount of directions and buttons, and balloons, and announcers required to win any races, so I didn’t win very many. And if you’re not winning a racing game, or even getting any better at its special brand of esoteric controls, then you need to move on to something else.
So I did.