It was a brave move for ASC Games to decide to pick up and localize the Japanese Dreamcast game formerly known as Buggy Heat. With Sega Rally 2 not scheduled for the Dreamcast's launch day, it was a good opportunity for ASC to grab a bit of the spotlight with their own off-road racer. Buggy Heat had it's fair share of control problems, and many gamers immediately dismissed the game as crap. However, there was another group of gamers that totally understood what Buggy Heat was about; Real off-road buggy racing. While Buggy Heat had, what I would consider realistically slippery control, ASC made the decision to tone it down a bit, to make the game more accessible. While the control may still seem a bit too loose for some, it all has to do with the way the game is played.

Take a 4-wheel drive vehicle, drive about 50 MPH in soft sand, snow, or gravel, then crank the wheel around a turn. What happens? You spin out. That's reality folks, and that's what Hardcore Heat is about. This is no Sega Rally 2, you cannot just push left regardless of the track conditions and expect to turn. As in real life buggy/off-road racing, you need to actually slow down when driving through loose material. If one tire grabs loose sand, while the other doesn't, you will spin. Jamming on the brakes is reserved for emergencies only, because the sudden shift in weight, and turning of the wheels would also cause a spin. In order to survive a race, you MUST learn throttle control and use the analog function of the Dreamcast's L and R triggers. Playing Hardcore Heat as an arcade style racer will do you no good. While on the surface it may appear that way, the underlying control scheme says otherwise. The

The graphics in Hardcore Heat, on average, were much better than I expected. Vehicle models are great, and even feature a distinct polygonal driver in each. The entire suspension of each car is visible, and you can clearly see the coil spring shocks doing their work. The track graphics range from about average (Egypt), to amazing (Peru), though all feature convincing environmental effects suck as snow, fog, rain and sandstorms. Each track is quite different from the rest. For example; The US track features a nice amount of asphalt as well as a stretch of bumpy beach and is setup in a rough "D" shape. Peru is shaped like a giant cross and features some insane jumps, inclines, declines and hairpin turns. In general, all tracks contain more than you fair share of bumps, ground surfaces, jumps and environmental hazards. Hardcore Heat runs at a solid 30fps, and I do not recall the framerate fluctuating just one bit. The music and sound effects are decent enough. Each individual driver has his/her own voice, and all the vehicles have appropriate engine sounds.

Hardcore Heat features most of your usual play modes and options. You can select from play modes such as Championship (compete on international courses in a race to be champion), Time Attack (race against time), Practice (free run) and VS Game (race against a second player or "AI" data. Hardcore Heat analyzes the way in which you play, and stores it in the form of "AI" data. This "AI" data is then used by the enemy cars to adjust to the way you play (It's thinking?). All eight vehicles, ranging from big wheeled trucks to little dune buggies, can be tweaked and adjusted. Everything from tire grip and gear ratio, to paint jobs and custom worded decals can be altered. The newly adjusted car can than be saved to the VMU and utilized during any of the play modes. Also included is a library which allows you to access replay data, and view the profiles of each car and driver. As with all US Dreamcast games, Hardcore Heat features support for the Jump Pack. I would actually say that Hardcore Heat has some of the best Jump Pack support I have felt thus far. Vibrations are strong, and somehow, each variation of road surface, bump and jump feels very different.

The real heart of Hardcore Heat is the Championship Mode. There are 3 classes within Championship Mode (Normal, Hard and Expert) and each takes you through a different selection and number of tracks. Normal features 3 easy tracks and somewhat weak competition. Hard features 4 tracks, with some tough competition. Expert features all 6 tracks with some especially brutal competition. In order to graduate from one class to another, you must finish with an average of 3rd place or higher. While the game isn't as difficult or as long as Sega Rally 2, the competition level is just about right for most people. By the time you reach the Expert class, you must have a fairly decent knowledge of the track layouts, or placing any higher than 4th may become difficult. Still, it probably won't take all that long for most people to play through the game. While the learning curve is about right, once the highest level is reached, you have pretty much seen it all. More tracks, hidden modes and vehicles would have been nice, but what is included isn't bad.