Giveaway of the Day - Mad Cars

From the description, didn’t think it would be a game I’d like.
So no comment, no vote, pass on dl.

Then see is from Realcore, and have found their previous GAOTD so much fun. Realcore is one of the few that work well with my older screen + XP. Small size so that is can be gotten via dial up.
So will give it a try & thank you.

sorry this is a little late, I overslept:

This received 90% of nearly 200 votes with only 18 thumbs down the first time it was given away and then only 57% from 324 votes the second time it was given away back in January of this year. You can check out the comments from both by following the links below:

Jan 07:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/mad-cars/#comments

Jan 08:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/cars-gone-mad/#comments

The Game:

There are three game modes Championship which is your basic Racing Game, Arena, which is like stock car racing, but not quite as you face off against one opponent, with no holds barred; and then there’s online play that’s similar to the single player championship game except you can either play with a friend on the same computer using the same keyboard, (or if you have a usb gaming board then you can both have a keyboard each) or play online against others around the globe. You earn bonuses and money so that you can upgrade your cars, choose from more powerful cars and then wipe out your fellow racers or death arena challengers. Earning money also gives you access to nine other tracks all with different scenery and styles. You can see what these look like by going to the multiplayer mode and select the online play option. Following the prompts will take you to a track selection screen where you can see all 10 tracks from a top down view. You can also choose from five different characters, all of which look mean in a cartoon sort of way. Check out the html read me document located in the games folder to find details of all the cars and the different maps (You can see this when the set up wizard finishes provided you leave the checkbox ticked, or go to the start menu and click on the appropriate shortcut). If you just want to get right into the game you can return to the read me via the start menu shortcuts or go directly to the games folder and click on the html document. All the game controls and other info that I’d normal write in my reviews will be found there. There’s also a four page help to be found in the main menu.

Game Features: (taken from the read me as I’m pushed for time)

• Ten tracks: city, military, industrial and other unexpected places.
• Drive 9 mad cars, such as totally equiped bat, furious ranger, insane hunter and more.
• Each car can be equipped with an onboard weapons system of your choice.
• Choose your preferred weapons: mines, spikes, guns and armors.
• Feel like in reality show with perfectly made damage effects.
• Take bonuses of speed-boost, get additional money and collect extreme weapons.
• Find your way through three modes: Championship, Death Arena and Multiplayer.
• Choose among 5 mad characters: savage Dick, crazy Sara or belligerent Max.
• Multiplayer
• Play full screen or windowed

You can see around 30 in game screen captures (though I used a few images I found via Google as I don’t have time to properly play the game today) Though I did play this the first time around and despite the poor controls, enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks BuBBy for the link to the gamepad converter, though I have a Wolf King gaming keyboard which is almost as good and requires no extra programs to make it work.

All on one page:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Mad%20Cars/?start=all

Slideshow:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Mad%20Cars/?albumview=slideshow

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

• Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
• Processor Pentium 166 or higher (Pentium II – recommended)
• DirectX 3.0 or higher
• Video card with 1 Mb video memory
• 12 Mb RAM
• 17 Mb free disk space
• Sound card – optional, but recommended for the music!

Conclusion:

NiteRaven hit the nail on the heads as far as I’m concerned when he said the following:

“this is a good game that could have been great. I would say its worth the download. If you’re a racing fan and can get past the arrow keys thing you’ll love this. If you don’t like racing or can’t deal with multiple keys with both hands.. steer clear.

Not being a racing fan despite having several titles such as MotoGP Racing, Motocross Madness I & II, Auto Assault (Which is loosly a 3D version of this) and Need for Speed Carbon & Pro Street, A few Colin McRae rally games including his last called Dirt, Race 07, GTR2, Test Drive Unlimited, Crashday, Flatout: Ultimate Challenge oh yeah! and the ‘Free’ online game called Darkwind: War on Wheels (another 3D real time strategy and racing game that I was involved in during the Beta testing and very loosely based on this game) ……phew, needed a long breath for that……… I do think this game can be a lot of fun once you’ve got used to the controls as I did the last time it was given away, though if you really want some thrills go for the free online Darkwind or buy Crashday which has the Arena fights and the racing but from a 3D perspective. You can buy this game in the UK from Game.uk for less than $10 which is outstanding considering the amazing game play. If you had to buy today’s game, I know which one I’d buy first, of course Crashday, which should play on most computers built in the last several years. You only require a video card with 64Mb of memory.

Still, I’ll probably stick to the ones I’ve got above. It’s a fun game so in my estimation is worth a reasonable 6.5 out of 10. Maybe a 7 due to the ability to play against a friend or to go online. The games AI is okay, but once you’ve got used to the controls it’s easily beaten even when setting it on the hardest difficulty setting (of which there are three).

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Other Similar Games:

If you like this game or missed the giveaway check out the following free games . The first one is to a post I started several months ago called Wheeled Games that contains loads of racing orientated games for free. I’ve listed a few below the link, though because there are so many links, I decided to remove them from the post and just leave the names. You can find all the links by following the second link below which takes you to the forum version of this post:

Wheeled Games Thread:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2574

forums:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4238?replies=1#post-45552

Real Racing:

This is the same as Intense Racing below and it was also given away over on the game giveaway site as Race Cars: The Extreme Rally

Mad Truckers:

KGB Hunter:

Extreme Racers:

Mad Race:

City Racing:

Intense Racing 2:

Intense Racing:

Real Racing:

Star Racing:

Darkwind:War on Wheels:

Grand Theft Auto:

Grand Theft Auto II:

You can get both of these directly from the developer’s site at Rockstar, but you have to first subscribe to their news letter:

please note, the rockstar version is in my view the better alternative because you don’t get the nag screens that you get with freegamespick, I’ve nmpot tried the softonic version though. Also with the Rockstar download you also get a third game called Wild Metal, which is a bit dated now, but still worth checking out. The download includes all three games and is 344Mb in size

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Other useful information:

Regarding the lack of control configurability with respect to only being able to use keyboard controls for this game? I’m sure many find this annoying as I do, because I’d much rather use a controller or Wheel (or even a joy stick). Thankfully BuBBy posted a link to XPadder which should enable you to use a console controller such as an Xbox controller.

I only found out this summer after I’d bought the Beijing 2008 Olympics game, that you required a controller to play it. Someone recommended that I bought an Xbox controller which I though would only work with an Xbox console, but it can actually be used on your PC as well. Anyway, here‘s the link BuBBy posted for the XPadder:

http://xpadder.com/

It allows you to configure any “keyboard only” game to work with your game controller.