Source: Official Sega Saturn Magazine (U.K.) – Issue Number 2
This review of Hi-Octane comes from the second issue of the U.K. edition of the Official Sega Saturn Magazine from December 1995. The review is of course for the Sega Saturn version. Hi-Octane is a futuristic racer very much like Wipeout but using a modified Magic Carpet 2 engine. These types of racers seemed to be very popular for a time in the mid to late 1990s.
This particular review is very positive overall but reviews in general for this game tended to be mixed. I never played the Saturn version but I had the PC version which I played on a 486 DX2-66 at the time. While it was an extremely high end machine for 1993 and still not bad for 1995, this game had frame rates that were less than what you would want. The graphics and sound were pretty mediocre as well. I suppose they may have been better with one of those fancy new Pentiums. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun playing it for a short while. It got old pretty fast though.
As is typical for this type of game, there are various cars (hovercraft), weapons and tracks to chose from. The variety in Hi-Octane was average at best though. Supposedly, Molynieux developed this game in 6 weeks as a stop gap in EA’s release schedule because he was busy making Dungeon Keeper at the time (a much better game) and did not want to rush it. That may account for some of Hi-Octane’s shortcomings.
If you want to give this one a try, it was available on the PC and PlayStation as well as the Saturn. The PC version was the original and is proably the best. However, you’ll have to track down an original as I’m not aware of any re-releases. The PC version may be the best but grabbing one of the console versions will be easier if you don’t have a DOS machine ready to go. Of course, there is always emulation.
The images above are all from the Sega Saturn version of the game.
