1995 · Racing

Cosmic Race

PlayStation exclusive

A racing game for the PlayStation released in 1995. Supposedly, the 3D graphics were composed entirely of stock textures from the system's development kit, and the sounds all recorded from a Casio keyboard.

Released: 20 January 1995
Platforms: PlayStation
Genres: Racing
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Themes: Science fiction

About

Cosmic Race is a spaceship-themed racing video game for the PlayStation. It was developed by Neorex (the company's only game) and was released exclusively in Japan in January 1995 as one of the console's first titles. Cosmic Race is notable for its largely negative critical reception with common complaints relating to its presentation, controls, and collision detection.

Keywords

anime

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Cosmic Race is a spaceship-racing game. The game consists of six different ships, including the Borg, Couga, Hito-01, Propeller, and S-lagon, each with their own anime-style driver. The game had sorts of humanoid cats, dogs, and humans.

It has multiple gamemodes, including:

Development

Cosmic Race was developed by Neorex, a Japanese systems architecture and information technology firm. Founded in 1987 in Nagoya, Neorex was one of the first third-party supporters for the debut of the PlayStation. Kenji Nakamura led a team of more than 20 people on the game's production and had to convince the company's president, who was initially against game development, to allow the project. Neorex's online profile describes Cosmic Race as its "first and last (?)

game software." A release date of December 1994 was initially reported. Some of the game's graphical assets were allegedly taken directly from the PlayStation's software development kit. Early footage on video shows a number of changes that were made in the final release.

Reception

Cosmic Race suffered a generally negative reception and has been considered by some publications to be among the worst video games of all time due to graphical and technical issues. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a lowly 16 out of 40. Next Generation rated it one star out of five, and stated, "Although there are only a few titles available on the PlayStation, it is obvious, in comparison, that Cosmic Race is substandard on almost every level. The graphics are childish and uninspired and the control is entirely awkward.

If all were right with the world, this game would never have been made." The French magazine Player One offered similar complaints, shaming the developer Neorex for its design. The Spanish magazine Última Generacion scored it 35 out of 100, stating that the game coined the term "octopus player" due to the number of gamepad buttons that must be simultaneously pressed to successfully play it. Ultimate Future Games gave it 25% and commented, "The polygon crust hides, not very effectively, an annoying game which shelters in the shadow of Ridge Racer.