Hooters Road Trip
What is it?
It may have seemed a good idea. Hooters is a sponsor for various racing sports, so shouldn't a racing game be an adequate promotion? And it might even have worked out, had it been executed by someone else instead of Manny Granillo and his innovative think tank, Hoplite Research.
Manny had very little to commend him. Ten years experience in quality control, a boring strategy game, and for Hoplite Research, a bad sequel to a bad game. Still he got the commission. The results were according: A bad racing game, with crummy graphics, hard to control interface, and inconsistent physics.
Now how do the Hooters girls and their eponymous orbs come into the picture? For most of the game, they don't. There are a few videos in the intro and at the end, a reward for surviving all that boredom. As one reviewer put it, having dinner there gives you more face time with Hooters girls than this game.
A sequel, Hooters Road Trip Overdrive for the Xbox using the Intrinsic Alchemy engine, planned for 2003 obviously didn't come to pass. Obviously Hooters realized that not any publicity is good publicity.
Hooters Road Trip is a cross-country road rally where you race against other drivers to win city to city segments as you make your way from Florida to California. Finish in the top five and you unlock the next segment of the race. Finish in one of the top spots and you get to hang out with the Hooters Girls. Well, apparently by "hanging out" the game means getting to watch a short Hooter Girl video. You'll get more face time with a Hooters Girl if you go down to your local Hooters for lunch.
Road Trip is a horrid, wretched, abysmal excuse for a racer that comes wrapped in a pretty but see-through package. Of course, nothing can touch the supreme delight of knowing, loving, and fearing girls in real life, but even if you must seek lustful gratification through intangible outlets, seek it elsewhere. Three to seven second clips of smiling and chipper females intersperse hours of painful and ugly gameplay that will damage your psyche and hurt your eyes.
Racing a level in Hooters: Road Trip is about as exciting as watching ice melt. The levels, or stages, all look virtually identical and all the traffic on the road consists of 3-4 predictable models (the truck, the sedan, the taxi and the sports car). The 'racing' consists of steadily navigating through traffic, while trying to pass five opponents on the way to the final destination. There is never an exciting moment.
