Giveaway of the Day - Jungle Racers

Another game from Handmade games. The 87.2Mb zip file unpacks to 2 files , a read me and a dual set up and activation module. The game installs to:

C:\Games\

There is no shortcuts to the desktop or the Start menu Programs list so you will need to make a note of where the game installs to so that you can make a shortcut. The installed game is 195Mb in size. The game works in Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit, win 7 Pro 64 bit, and XP Pro 32 bit. Will check Vista later.

The Game:

Jungle Racers works from the same basic design that all of Handmade games have followed. You have to win either Gold, Silver or Bronze medal to unlock the next level. Scoring a specific number of cup awards will unlock one of the six locked vehicles. You start the game with two unlocked vehicles. I unlocked the third vehicle after winning a bronze and a Gold award in my first and second races.

There are three race types available, but these are programmed into the game as opposed to being able to select the mode you want to play. Basically you start with a time attack where you race alone against the clock. Every checkpoint ads extra time which is cumulative to the time you had left when you passed. To help you get there faster you have a boost control. Beware though as too much boost will blow your engine. Thankfully there is an indicator to the bottom left of the screen. An audible warning will alert you to imminent engine failure. To use the boost control just press X. The second race type is a circuit race where you race against several AI controlled vehicles of various descriptions. (You’ll be able to unlock these as the game progresses). You have to win third, second or first place to progress to the next level. The final race type is called an elimination race. The last vehicle past a checkpoint is eliminated from the race until only the last car is left. You have to be in the top three to unlock the next stage.

There are 18 levels in all; however only six different tracks made up of the following:

Guava forest
Coco Forest
Bamboo forest
Banana forest
Roacky Canyon
Mixed Forest

Each environment is repeated two more times, the first repeat you get fog and the second repeat you race the reverse of the original track, making 18 races in total.

You can set up multiple profiles. Once you’ve completed a race your profile and progress will be saved, though you have to complete and win a race for it to be saved. You can reset (re-spawn) a race if problems arise, for example you get stuck on a bend or have crashed into the forest and are finding it difficult to get back on track. The game is keyboard controlled and you can only play the game in full screen.

Changing the Config file:

There is a way around the full screen only problem. you need to remove the config file from the installed games folder then edit it. You may need to change the program to open the config file (for example notebook will open it up and then enable you to edit the settings). Change the full screen to 0 and the screen width and height to whatever setting you want for example 800 x 600. (Though I found making it just a little smaller that the original settinfgs worked. Changing it too much made it so that you couldn’t see most of the game screen and some of the menus were inaccessible). I’d definitely save the original and create a set of different config files for different effects. You can change things like friction to chnge the way the game plays, though be careful with these because you may mess the game up. I found reducing the screen size too much made it impossible to play the game because parts of the screen were missing. Changing the weather made the screen black. My advice mess around with the settings until you find something that works for you. I found after changing the settings a configuration widow would pop up that didn’t when I first stated the game. From the configuration window you can turn off bloom and motion blur as well as change the number of particles. This may be a way of getting the game to work for those who say the game starts with a black screen.

Controls:

Accelerate – Forward Arrow
Brake – Back Arrow
Turn Left – Left Arrow
Turn Right – right Arrow
Boost – X
Pause = Esc

Conclusion:

This is a much improved game over other racing games from Handmade games. The game physics are reasonable, the graphics are okay and the variety of races enough to keep you entertained. If you’re into games like Grid, Dirt 2, the Need for Speed franchise, and other big bucks racing games this will probably seem like a very poor cousin and you’ll think it c&*%, but as an arcade game it’s quite good in my opinion and worth 7 out of 10; (compared to my scorings of 5 or 6 for all other hand made racing games), though personally I’d only give it a 5 out of 10 as their is nothing innovative about the game.

The game could be refined by adding the ability to cancel the race and restart from the start; especially after an engine blowout. As it is now, if you blow your engine you have to wait until you either time out on a stage in time attack, get eliminated or until the race ends in the circuit race. Also some of the environments look very similar, for example the guava and coco forests don’t look that different. Maybe if you change the time of day to give the level a different feel it would feel like you are getting more for your money (assuming you were going to purchase this game) . I don’t think the game is worth $14.99, especially when you can get better ‘big bucks’ games from places like steam and direct 2 drive (digital downloads) or from shops like Game UK for similar prices once the initial sales periods have expired, for example you can get Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate box for less than $10, that game has amazing graphics and superb game physics. Or an even better bargain is the first in the dirt series for about $7.50. I’d rcertainly reduce the games price to $5 or less, especially as the developer has already allowed places like Gametop to give the game away, otherwise i doubt anyone would purchase it.

Thank you Handmade games and the Gamegiveawayoftheday team for bringing us more games.

Alternatives.

There’s a wheeled games thread over in the game discussion forums where you’ll find loads of racing games and you’ll find quite a few racing games that I’ve not added to the wheeled games thread in G@rgoyles free games synopsis (look in the stickies on the forums front page). There are also 36 racing games of various types that you can get from MyPlayCity which you can find via the following link:

http://www.myplaycity.com/free_racing_games/

I’ve not linked to Gametop because I’ve locked it out on my computer. I got a pop up asking me to allow a specific file to run when trying to access Gametop. I didn’t allow it and have not been able to access the site since. You’ll find several racing games including a copy of this game there as well, but most are repeated at MyPlayCity. Gametop have become more aggressive with respect to adding home page hijacking and tool bar installations, all of which you can opt out of, but if you forget, is an annoyance.

p.s.

I wasn’t able to take any screenshots of in game racing as they would all come out totally black. I managed to capture the above images by changing the congiguration file that you can find in the installed games folder, but was only able to capture menu screens and intro screens. The in game images i’ve posted were copied from the developers web site..

This is the same game and it’s freeware:
http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/offroad-racers/

…………………………………Moderator Comment………………………….

The game isn’t freeware. All games available from Gametop (and other sites sucha s MyPlayCity) are full commercial games, but you get them free because of the added extra’s. Gametop pay the developer a certain amount of money to be able to give the developers games away for free, but the price you pay is having your browser opened and directed to the host site. Also you run the risk of getting your home page hijacked and tool bars installed (though as mentioned above, these can be avoided by unchecking the appropriate boxes during installation.