Hooters Road Trip is not the type of game I would normally review. It’s a racing game based on an obviously gratuitous license. Hooters doesn’t really have any kind of presence in the video game market. It’s not that I’m a huge fan of the license (I’ve only been to one of the restaurants once many years ago for a drink on a hot day). I chose to check this one out almost at random. Just for the halibut I suppose. Either way let’s take a deep look at this racer. Is Hooters Road Trip worth playing? Read on to find out!
There’s no real story to speak of. You’re going on a road trip, and that’s about it. You have short full motion videos thrown in which depict the infamous Hooters girls. They welcome you to each city you arrive at (in between the races) and even congratulate you on how well you’ve done. In this day and age it’s pretty tame compared to what you’ll see in mainstream movies and anyone with an internet connection doesn’t really need a video game to see this kind of stuff. I promise I won’t mention this aspect again because we’re going to focus on Hooters Road Trip strictly on its merits as a racing game.
Unfortunately it’s not a very good one. Hooters Road Trip is a 3D racer. You don’t compete by driving laps around a course and instead take in the scenery as you travel from city to city. That’s the road trip aspect of the game. I found it a bit odd that this isn’t a traditional race. You compete against six different opponents, and instead of starting in a line-up, they have the advantage of beginning ahead of you. This isn’t as much a problem as you might suspect because all enemies seem to drive about half your speed and are easily passed. Even on the higher difficulty levels you’ll have no problem leaving them in the dust.
Enemy racers aren’t all you’ll have to worry about though. Because this is a ‘road trip’ you’ll also have to worry about civilian traffic. They do a good job of getting in your way to the point that I found myself forced to pass some on the road’s shoulder. These consist of sedans, big rigs, and more. The collision detection on these is a little wonky. Instead of knocking them forward like you’d expect you instead sort of get stuck on them. It’s a little annoying, but Hooters Road Trip is so easy that colliding with a few doesn’t mean you’re going to lose. Heck, you probably won’t even come in second even if you play this game like you’re competing in a bumper cars bout.
So let’s start with what’s good. The scenery is mildly enjoyable and there’s a fair amount of diversity. There’s a real focus on the South eastern United States and I found this kind of neat. Hooters Road Trip also offers up a great sense of speed. As long as you don’t hit anything you can really get going. The photos on the loading screens and videos are eye candy as well, and I imagine this was the main appeal of the game. What’s nice is you can compete in single matches, or go on a tour which is the basic ‘story’ mode. You’ll unlock new cars and licenses which means there’s at least a little bit of replay value.
Now for the bad stuff. The controls are awful. I’m probably understating that fact. Steering with any level of accuracy is downright impossible. It feels like your car is being pulled by rubber bands every time you push left or right. While driving you’ll constantly hit the outer edges of the track but thankfully it will usually knock you back into the main play area. It’s clear that these developers were very inexperienced with racing games. I’m sure even an amateur could have made better physics for your car. I mentioned earlier that Hooters Road Trip is easy, but it’s so bad that it’s stupid and mindless. Even smacking into the edges, or into other cars, you’ll find it’s not difficult at all to overtake the other racers. The game does offer a hard and pro mode, but you’ll find these are also overly easy.
The graphics are actually kind of decent. The cars look blocky although they’re fairly detailed even for a late release on the platform. The terrain also looks pretty nice. You still have the usual PS1 jank with pixelated 2D elements such as tree branches and the like, but this was pretty common back in this day. The full motion video is good. It’s a little pixelated but it’s decent by PS1 standards. The music is okay. It consists mostly of hard rock (I guess to fit with the extreme wings and beer appeal of the restaurants). It’s not really my thing but it fits the action well enough. I do like that you can listen to the soundtrack right from the menu.
Honestly the hard part of this review is finding the right audience to recommend Hooters Road Trip to. It’s a racing game, but it’s a pretty poor one to be honest. The loading screens and full motion video make good use of the Hooters license, but in the day and age of high speed internet this isn’t going to be a selling point. I suppose if you’re hungry for a bland racer with some gratuitous nods to the restaurant franchise on which it’s based then this is okay. Hooters Road Trip is pretty bad overall though.
