Road Rash 3D

About Road Rash 3D

Road Rash 3D (1998) is Electronic Arts' PlayStation-only Road Rash, racing and brawling across a network of interconnected roads to a licensed soundtrack, with more focus on racing than fighting.

Road Rash 3D in Depth

As in earlier Road Rash games, the player races motorcycles against other riders in an arcade style with little emphasis on realism, punching rivals or hitting them with weapons to slow them down. Winning earns money to upgrade the bike, while finishing last earns nothing and being stopped by the police costs money. Compared with its predecessors, it puts more emphasis on racing and less on combat. The courses are pieced together from a larger network of interconnected roads, so tracks may share segments but start or end in different places or turn down different routes; players can take a wrong turn, but going too far runs into invisible walls.

Through a licensing deal with Atlantic Records, the soundtrack features Sugar Ray, Kid Rock, CIV, The Mermen, Full on the Mouth and The Tea Party, with Sugar Ray contributing "Speed Home California", "Tap, Twist, Snap" and "Mean Machine". The riders were animated with motion capture, the actors perched on mock-up motorcycles. Edge praised the road network, "impressive" 3D engine and track design, but found the combat moves unresponsive and dependent on luck, and GamePro still considered it a worthy instalment despite its flaws.

Making Road Rash 3D

Electronic Arts developed and published it exclusively for the PlayStation. Reviews were average, the commonest complaint being that it fell short of the Genesis and 3DO games, above all in lacking two-player play. GameSpot criticised graphical glitches and the reduced combat, IGN complained that after two to three years of development it controlled worse and played slower than the 3DO game, GameRevolution called it "one of the worst motorcycle games...ever", and Next Generation gave it two stars. Later games answered the criticism: Road Rash 64 put greater emphasis on combat with multiplayer for up to four, and Road Rash: Jailbreak added a two-player sidecar mode.