Horse Race Starter ホースレーススターター (XBLIG, 2009)

ホースレーススターター Horse Race Starter
Developed by dot zo games
Released for XBLIG (8/2009)

ホースレーススターター　Horse Race Starter is among the strangest titles I've encountered on XBLIG. Once you begin the game, you are greeted to a green field, you'll see a pixelated crowd at the bottom and your character in a box to the right of the audience. A speech bubble pops out of your guy, stating "Press A," which when pressed will fire the pistol and off from the right side of the screen the horses come racing in. They very small, but made of some solid pixel art with great animations, including riders falling off their horse occasionally. The odd thing is, you have no control over the actual race at all, you just shoot the gun to start the race, watch the race and once it's over the game will load up a new screen at which point you rinse and repeat. I'm not sure if it ever ends, and the programmers didn't put a pause game feature to exit out properly, so you'll have to dashboard out when you're finished. I played the game for the trial's duration, and I must say there was something strangely calming about just sitting back watching the pixelated horses racing, but I can't say this is a title I have any desire to return to just the same.

Like of all dot zo's other titles on XBLIG, the game retailed for only a dollar so while the gameplay was limited it was also very cheap. The game was listed in the store with the Japanese kanji and was a bit tricky to find in the XBLIG back when it was still open. In order to find it without searching in the store on the 360, you had to navigate to indie games, select the genre tab, and you'll find it under "Other," after scrollling through like 250+ titles to find it (it was way in the back). The game title was somehow misspelled as Horse Race Stater, further making this title a bit more confusing. Horse Race Starter definitely isn't dot zo's best output, but it is still an interesting title nonetheless.

Final Verdict: ホースレーススターター　Horse Race Starter is an odd title where you press the A button to fire gun, watch the horses race and then do it all over again, and again, and again... If you like oddball games you may like this one.

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Horse Race Starter - GameFAQs