It was only a matter of time after I linked Spy Hunter (2001) to Beetle Adventure Racing that I’d return to it. Beetle Adventure Racing is an old favourite of mine. I used to rent it a bunch as a kid, and made it a point to grab it when I started collecting games in earnest in my adulthood. Major soft spot, is what I’m saying.

And it’s a weird concept, too. Racing games centred around a brand are usually just bargain bin fodder. Ford Racing for PS1? Garbage. Your loyalty to the brand would have to be extreme to make it worthwhile.

Beetle Adventure Racing is more than just an advergame. In fact, you could substitute for basically any vehicle and still get a great game. Although, in Australia, it was released as HSV Adventure Racing, and it feels wrong playing as cars that look like cars. The Volkswagen New Beetle has that touch of whimsy that compliments the rest of the driving fantasy.

BEETLE!

The Volkswagen New Beetle was a weird phenomenon in the ‘90s. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car marketed so hard. It was everywhere for a while, sometimes even dressed as Pikachu. And I don’t mean “everywhere” as in “everyone was driving one.” I don’t think I’ve even sat in one. I just mean that it was heavily marketed to the point of near-ubiquity. A very late-’90s product.

Beetle Adventure Racing actually started life as an N64 entry in the Need for Speed series. According to Paradigm art director Sean Wright, when EA acquired the VW license, Producer Scott Blackwood felt that adopting it would allow the team more creative freedom to make their game more “happy fun.” You definitely get a feel for that direction in the final product, as it’s a joyful experience. It’s amazing a developer could get excited about the concept, but it’s clear that they did.

The “adventure” part of Beetle Adventure Racing is an odd nomenclature. I feel like it brings to mind Diddy Kong Racing, but I think it instead refers to the track themes. While the game starts out with the relatively normal-ish “Coventry Cove.” The second track, “Mount Mayhem,” has you leaping over chasms and driving under a frozen UFO. The third track, “Inferno Island” glues together tropical resorts, pirates, volcanoes, and Jurassic Park. Not kidding, early in the track, you pass down a road that is reminiscent of the T-Rex paddock from the movie, and a dinosaur pops out to roar at you.

ADVENTUUURE!

That’s not all; each track is rife with detours. I’m hesitant to call them “shortcuts” because only some of them will actually save you time. However, most of them will take you through interesting locations, showing you sights like a UFO frozen in the bowels of a mountain.

But they’re more than just for sightseeing, even if that’s the best part. The tracks are littered with boxes with assigned point values. Largely, these are to earn you extra continues in Championship mode if you are able to collect enough (a very important function). Getting 100 will unlock tracks for a weird battle mode. But, functionally, they’re mostly just fun to collect and are helpful to signify where detours can be found. I eventually found the willpower to resist, but they’re just so satisfying to smash.

I sort of wish that the boxes had more exciting function. Beetle Adventure Racing’s tracks are a tangle of routes you can take, with some detours further branching into more detours. You’ll often be driving a circuit and you’ll see route exits or overlaps that clue you into where you might find a fresh slice of road. Scott Blackwood referred to “line-of-sight” when I was talking to him, and I think this is what he was referring to.

But why I bring this up is that, if you want to get all 100 points in a track, you need to devote each of your three laps to a different route. Essentially, it signifies mastery of a track. However, if you’ve already collected the 100 points once, then you don’t need to do it again, and that incentive goes away, and you’re better off finding the safest/fastest route and repeating that. Getting enough boxes to get a continue is still incentive to drive off the main route, but with the right motivation to get all 100, it would be perfect. Like, if that was how you unlocked special Beetles, the replay value would skyrocket.

RACING!

It’s really easy to make Beetle Adventure Racing sound terrible. For example, every car is a Volkswagen New Beetle. They don’t even, for example, throw in an older model Beetle to shake things up. Winning a Championship nets you another run of Beetles, but, for the most part, they only differ in performance. Some of them have a different look to their suspension, or they might have a spoiler or racing stripe, but that’s about it. In a way, that’s kind of charming. Every race is just a swarm of colourful, bulbous slug-cars. In another way… that’s it. There’s nothing else.

There are only six tracks in total. Which, I have to be honest, I’ve been playing a bunch of Top Gear Rally, and that only had five much more spartan tracks, so my standards have been substantially lowered. However, in both games, this becomes a problem because of the expectation to continually replay them to get through career mode.

Each championship has you play the courses in order. The first championship requires you to win in three, the second in four, and the third in five. The sixth track is technically in the “Bonus” championship. Each time, you play the tracks in the same order before reaching the new one at the end. It’s a rather dull way of laying out the progression. Like having to eat your vegetables just to make it to dessert.

It’s also not an easy game. For me, anyway. For starters, a single bad race can make you start all over. As mentioned, you can get “continues” that allow you to repeat a lost race, but they’re unlocked by collecting enough points. It’s best to practice newly unlocked tracks before going into the championship, otherwise you’ll be playing courses repeatedly until you finally land a win on the final track.

WELCOME!

It’s difficult. I’ve been playing this game for what will soon be three decades, and I only recently made it through to the credits. Part of this is the difficulty, but the other part is its dull singleplayer framework. I’d lose interest well before the end. I had questioned whether I’d ever be able to do it, especially when I struggle with Sunset Sands. I blame all the sand. It gets everywhere.

This time, it all came down to the last track. I was second in rankings, but if I came in first, I’d have enough points to cinch the win. Then, on the last track, I misjudged the position of the finish line and slammed into a wall. My heart sank when another car cruised past me. I came in second, but it turned out that the car that came in first wasn’t even my rival. So, I still landed on the top of the championship rankings and finally completed the game. It’s like a heavy weight came off my shoulders. I finally consummated my appreciation with Beetle Adventure Racing.

It can be difficult to explain why Beetle Adventure Racing is such a terrific game, but I think it mostly comes down to attitude and track design. It embodies the whimsical nature of the car it’s based around, and its commitment to just being a fun experience really hides the fact that the project started as an N64 version of Need for Speed. It perhaps boils down to being solid and unique. It’s something I’ve gone back to repeatedly over the last quarter-century, and it’s one of the best N64 racing games you can find. It’s quite a ride.

8/10

This review was conducted on an N64 using a cartridge copy of the game. It was paid for by the author. Visuals were upscaled through a RetroTink 4K.