SNES Game Review: Kawasaki Caribbean Challenge

  The SNES featured all sorts of genres and companies and names to their games.  Kawasaki got into the mix with two different games, Kawasaki Superbike Challenge and the next game to be reviewed which is Kawasaki Caribbean Challenge.  There are some ups and downs to this, mainly more of the latter.  As you can tell already, this isn't going to be among the tops of the racing games out there.

Positives: Yes, let's start there.

1. Caribbean feeling- You get the Caribbean feeling in the graphics, which have a lot of beaches, essentially everywhere on every course (three road, three water) there are beaches a plenty.

2. Variety of road courses- One square oval and two twisting road courses feature the road events. There is a significant downside to this after the variety is noted.

3. Game pace- Like the Wheel of Fortune game, which has the same developers, this is a quick paced game.  This can be beaten in less than an hour.

Negatives: Plenty more so.

1. The controls are bad- You can't go fast on the road courses.  You have to slow down considerably to even make a corner on the road courses, and you risk getting run over.  Hey that leads me to..

2. The AI is bad- Yep, getting run over a ton is my impression of motorcycle racing.  Even if not getting run over, you then see them just as ridiculous on the track all over the place.  GameTek, the designers, really didn't think this through.. and the AI are a massive downside to this game.

3. The random obstacles- Oil and hay and water on the road, whirlpools in the water.  This is just straight up laziness to be honest.  Not just that, but there is almost no way to avoid about 85 percent of them as they are in the ideal racing line.  It's also that they give you a guaranteed wreck about 90 percent of the time, even if slowed down.

4. No sense of real racing- After the first motorbike, you have bikes that have no real sound of an engine.  After the first bike, everything sounds so much quieter.  The wave-riders are just as meh.  They don't have much to them.  Controlling them is next to impossible as well most times.

5. Graphics are meh- They aren't great.  Yes, I said that you are in the Caribbean and it is noticeable, but that doesn't mean the graphics are good.  They are more or less average and pretty grainy in many ways.  This is noted more so on the road tracks than the water tracks.  The road tracks make it want to feel a sense of speed but instead it is more just the fact it is grainy and just rough.

In all, Kawasaki Caribbean Challenge isn't a great game, nor a good one.  On the face, it's a bad game, with not much going for it.  Sure the fact it is a quick game is notable, but it's not a very good game by any stretch of the imagination.  The controls are bad, as are the graphics, and the AI make it a demolition derby rather than a race.  My number rating for Kawasaki Caribbean Challenge is 3.4 out of 10.  My all-time ranking is 525th.