The game crashed on my Windows XP
- Windows XP SP3, Core 2 Duo E8600, 4 GB RAM, G41 Express chipset onboard Graphics
- Install, first play good, still not allow to save profile
- Quit game, from the second play, it crashes. Must use Windows Task Manager to stop it, and uninstall then after trying 3 times.
Has downloaded the trial version from Playrix, the same problem. May be the game bug :(


...........................Moderator Comment...........................

Try going into compatibility mode. Or try seeing if you have any background programs that are causing the problem due to incompatibility. :)

Got this game last time - was ok! You mention emulator was available but not sure what you wanted? I'm not an expert on games, but have downloaded 30,000+ games for my son, but rarely do so so anymore becus I fiquire he can't play that many games??A popular web page for emulators in u.s, Is Emulator Zone which might have that emulator you mentioned in your review?? http://www.emulator-zone.com/ Not sure emulators used n U.S. are useful in Great Britian since you guys drive on wrong side of road??? Seems since your country had it's war of indedance from U.S. AND broke away you english dudes have been doing everything backwards???

.............................Moderator comment............................

:P

I'm a great fan of racing games, whether true sims (GTL, rfactor, etc.) or arcade racers (NFS, Test Drive). But with no in-car view and no support for controllers (not even a joystick), I'll pass on this one.

(Even with a steering wheel I'm thoroughly inept trying to drive from a third person view.)


....................Moderator Comment.....................

See previous comments above. :)

Used http://www.xpadder.com/ to map keys to a controller works better than the keyboard

Runs under XP SP2 just fine Stephen.

There are 10+ years old games better than this (eg. eracer, OffRoad to name just two). It's no news that controlling any racing games with a keyboard isn't easy. For those who need help with games that don't natively support other controllers, there is a program called JoyToKey http://joytokey.net/en/ that maps a joystick to the keyboard aka makes the computer believe that you press a key when you tilt the joystick.

..........................Moderator comment..........................

Thanks JoeJ, will have to check it out. I still use joysticks (have the Logitech flight Gear and another joystick that I use with my flight sims and arcade flight games).

Very hard to control but as WR said, it should get easier over time. Tried about 10 races on 2 courses on medium difficulty and came close to winning one time. I was able to set graphics to 1900X1200X32 (my monitor resolution). Seem that "ghost car" powerup slows you down and makes it harder to get other powerups, I'm thinking that during the invisible part of its blinking the game doesn't detect what the car runs over (including the road!). Still worth the download, to have a challenge in getting better at steering. Will try a gamepad controller, ran across a program last week that converts gamepad inputs to keypresses, called JoyToKey (haven't tried it yet).

WR, enjoy your vacation!


.............................Moderator Comemnt........................

Thanks for the head up to Joytokey, not heard of that one before. :)

The year is 2014. I know because I checked my calendar. Car racing games that ONLY use keyboard controls? I recycled my 8088 DOS machine YEARS ago.

........................Moderator Comment............................

There's an upsurge of interest in retro games. Just go visit GOG and you'll find games originally available back in the 1980's /early 90's for example the excellent rpg Darklands, or alternativly the many abandonware sites and emulator downloads for some of the now defunct consoles.

OOPS, I just clicked thru the entire Xpadder site and it's NOT FREE - it costs $10 US! Sorry about the mis-info, my bad.

OTOH, there are previous versions floating around the web... hint hint.
John


...........................Moderator Comment.............................

:)

Hi Stephen! Hope things are going well at the new house with you and your family. We've had a wild summer with very strong storms and even deadly tornadoes here in NY state, a very unusual occurrence - there's still a downed tree in our backyard from the last one awaiting an insurance adjuster.

I try to check in weekend to see what's on tap but haven't had much interest in the offered games for a bit, and today's is no exception - it's probably the only Playrix game I didn't enjoy, for all the reasons you cite in your review. I kept it from the last giveaway and have tried it a few times, but it's not a keeper IMO... 4 of 10 from me.

OTOH, there is a free gamepad for keyboard simulator available as you requested, works quite well, at http://www.xpadder.com/ that might help with the touchy control problem. I've used it for my favorite driving game, the always entertaining 4x4 Evo2, now free with zillions of custom tracks and vehicles online. That is more to my liking, since you can just drive, roam the countrysides, race, or go long in a career mode, offroad or on streets and roads. (shameless plug, eh?) Nice to escape my chronic pain condition, almost as good as opiates I have to take. :)

Hope this helps - be well, WR, and thanks for your moderating, I have come to rely on your reviews as so many here do, and appreciate your efforts.
John

........................Moderator Comment...............................


Thanks John. :) Yeah, games really do help, and I agree re almost being as good as opiate.

Not my type of game, so didn't try. But love Playrix and Alawar and the Indies for their contributions - and I buy from them in return. Many thanks to Promytius for ref to Alice's Magical Mahjong - bought it and will enjoy when it's too hot to mow this pm.

Racing Games ! :) I'd buy a good new one from this company! But $20 for one that is more than eight years old? Get real, boys!

Now, next week - GOLF!

You're pushing your luck Swampy, but yeah, a gold game would be great. Have you seen the recent release on Steam called Vertiginous Golf? Great game :)

Hope all is well over there.
After considering this game I decided not to DL, for 2 reasons mentioned in the review; first it is very 'retro' and second it is 3rd person; once you've driven NFS or F1 or any great, 1st person hires graphics, perfect driving simulation, it's very hard to go backwards. I wish the developers good luck, but with all the massive FP driving games, this will have limited appeal.
p.s.
I *Finally* finished Alice's Magical Mahjong - top marks all around.

..........................Moderator comment.........................

I love all of the more recent first person racing games; I have all the PC versions (Grid, NFS, That Car Game, F1 etc), but I do find playing some of these retro games gives me as much pleasure. I see them as a sub genre of the racing genre, much like those games where you shoot up or destroy your opponents. Nice one re: Alice's Magical Mahjong :)

Installs and runs fine on a Vista 32 bit system.

Has nice graphics however the controls are not good and make the game difficult to play.

........................Moderator Comment.......................

When I first came across this game on one of the free sites (Gametop I think), I found the controls very difficult and couldn't win a race; however, if you persevere, it does become much easier. I'd not played this since it was last given away, yet I won all of the races I tried, one I played a few moments ago I was half a lap ahead of the cometition. This would be much improved if there was a multipler option, or even being able to use the mouse to steer. One of the power ups is a slow mo power up; it actually helps you to control the vehicle. I found I was able to take all the corners at full acceleration without leaving the road or crashing using the slow mo power-up. :)

This has got to be one of the worst car games I have played yet. Installed quickly and easily. That's about the only good thing i can say about it! This is a waste of hard drive space.
1. The graphics are terrible compared to most other car games. Even ones for iphone.
2. This game is like a trial version. Only 2 cars offered. If you want to try anything else you will have to pay for it.
3. Only 2 maps offered. The most basic map, and if you want to drive on a different map then you have to pay for it.

I played 1 game and then uninstalled without a trace.

.....................................Moderator comment..........................

It does seem a rather poor game; howver, if you persevere, it does get easier to control the cars. By winning races you earn money, which can then be spent on the better cars. There's no real money involved. As for the poor graphics. this game is at least 9 or 10 years old, so graphically it was pretty good in its time. By todays standards, it's not, but then graphics f=don't make the game; its the game play :)

This may be the first ever Playrix game offered here that I'm not even interested in trying. Mainly because I don't like racing games, but also because of the first 2 comments in the Share Your Ideas section above.

Ah well, to each his or her own. I'm sure some will enjoy the game; I just won't be one of them. Thanks, anyway.


...........................Moderator comment.........................

Hopefully there will be a game you'll enjoy next week. The summer months, especially leading up to the vacation period, there is usually a slump in the number of games made available' also, we are only getting games from a couple of csources at the moment (Playrix and Alawar, plus a few indie's). I also think the recent glut of indie bundles and constant sales from the big distributors has affected the number of games we have been getting over the last few years. If you look back over the games we have received, we are still getting a good numbe rof games never been given away before.

I'll be going on vacation after next weeks giveaway, and won't be around until mid August.

Race Cars: the Extreme Rally:

windows 7 screen shot

windows 7 screen shot

Installation:


Race Cars: the Extreme Rally downloads to a 30.6 MB zip file (same size as previously) that unpacks to a read me and a wrapped setup activation file (the orange colored file with the key symbol), plus there's a setup file with security (setup.gcd) that's protected from being hacked. This file may case some security software to alert the user to a possible malware attack, but it will be a false positive.

The game giveaway team check all game giveaways for malware using several well known anti -malware suites. There has never been a game giveaway infected with malware since the project started back in Dec 2006. Some community members have been having problems installing games since the security software was added. It's been found that turning off your security or configuring it to accept the setup.cgd file sorts the problem out. The installed game is 58.6 MB in size. and installs to:


C:\Program Files (x86)\Playrix Entertainment\Race Cars - The Extreme Rally (minus the x86 on 32 bit computers)

by default but can be changed to suit whatever your wishes are. Shortcuts are installed to both the Desktop and Start Menu via All Programs/Playrix Entertainment. You’ll also find an uninstaller in the All Programs folder. Once the game is installed you can delete the giveaway setup files.

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I've only tested the game on Win 7 and Win 8. Anyone running Vista or XP, please confirm whether this game works Thanks. I will be installing these two platforms back onto an older computer for testing purposes eventually; (got too many other projects on at the moment though)



If you miss the game today it's available from Gametop (and probably from MyPlayCity), HERE 24/7, please do be aware of the pitfalls of installing games from these sites (i.e possible toolbar installations and home page changes as well as browser changes - these can be avoided by making sure you uncheck the boxes during installation and in the case of MyPlayCity games un-checking them whenever you boot the game up. Also your browser is always opened to the sites when you close the game down, but this is innocuous.









Introduction:

Drive the super fast race cars and see if you could have been or perhaps still can become the world's best racer. This fabulous 3D game will put you to a test of speed and skill. With 12 fastest race cars to choose from, a number of bonuses to help you win and various difficulty levels to help you improve, participate in over 50 tournaments and win the grand prix. Compete on a variety of race tracks in different weather conditions and climates and prove that you are really fast and furious!

Reference accessed HERE March 2013

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windows 7 screen shot

Race Cars: the Extreme Rally was originally given away back in March 2007 when it received 79% of 282 positive votes. There were 77 comments made about the game; then it was given away again in January 2008 where it received a positive 61% of 422 votes with 87 comments. It was also given away back in April 2011 where it received a p[ositive 57% from 315 votes with 31 comments. You can see all previous comments made HERE (March 2007), HERE (Jan 2008 - Check out game seekers comment #21 and #54, and my comment #32) and HERE (April 2011),






The Game:


Race Cars: The Extreme Rally is a top down third person racing game with a retro feel to it. To play the game you use a limited number of keyboard keys. These are the arrow keys for acceleration, braking and reverse as well as steering plus a reset key to take you back onto the road if you crash, the Esc key to restart the game, just in case you are hopelessly out classed and a camera key (C) which changes the camera position three times. You can also use the space bar to brake or reverse as well as the down arrow key. :lol:

windows 7 screen shot

There are around 50 tournaments spread over 15 different races including countryside1 & 2, Wild West 1 & 2, Greece, Texas, a military base, an Aztec site, a UFO crash site and a few others, most of which you have to unlock. Initially you only have two cars to choose from, but as you progress through the game you’ll unlock another 10 cars. Each car has slightly different attributes such as speed, acceleration, handling and weight. Of the two cars you get at the beginning, the Beemer is probably the best choice because it has better handling properties than the Mars although the Mars has better speed and acceleration. That said, these differences are very hard to spot when you are actually racing.
You can change the screen resolution via the options menu, though these are limited to 640 x 480 x 16 to 1024 x 768 x32 as well as graphic detail and brightness. There are also sound and music sliders to change the in game volume

You can choose from a quick race or tournament. The latter has two difficulty settings Normal and Extreme, though I couldn’t see much difference between either apart from the cars seemed to set off a little faster. After some practice I was able to win all races with relative ease and my 10 daughter with no practice at all won her first race. If you choose quick race you’ll find three of the 15 tracks open, (Countryside 1, Wild West 1 and Greece), the rest you have to win races to unlock, though once you’ve unlocked them via the tournament mode you can always access them via the quick race mode. Apart from being able to play races in any order there’s little difference between the modes. You can save your progress but if you want to change difficulty you have to start from the beginning. It’s possible to set up multiple profiles, so rather than lose progress it’s better to create a new profile.

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I found the keyboard controls a little sensitive and needed to practice quite a lot just to get around most corners when I first played this game four years ago. I was constantly going off the road and ending up last. Once in that position it was very hard to get ahead especially as power ups were being picked up by those ahead of you. To pick up a power up you have to drive over them. They include an acceleration bonus (Yellow diamond with letter A), a red diamond with letter ‘T’ which slows down your car as well as a ghost car (White box with letter G and stylized image of ghost) and finally a slow motion bonus that slows down all of your opponents (Green diamond with the letter S). Being in last position is disadvantageous because you end up missing out on the good bonuses, though they do re-spawn, but not immediately. To unlock new races and cars you need to win races.

Once you’ve mastered the cornering, the game is okay. You can change the camera view via the C key or reset if you come off the road by pressing R, but this does not restart the game it just places you back on the road. To restart a race press the Esc key and choose Restart Race. There is a small map of the circuit to the bottom left of the play area, this can be of use in preparing yourself for any hairpin bends etc.

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System Requirements:


O.S. - 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista
CPU - 800MHz
SysRAM 128MB
vRAM - 32MB
Direct X 8 or higher



Images & Video:


You can be seen a video of Race Cars: The Extreme Rally HERE













Conclusion:




After playing some of the best racing games around (all the Need for Speed games, most of the Colin McRae Rally games including the three Dirt games (though Dirt 3 wasn't that good IMO), Richard Burns Rally, Fuel, Race 07, Grid, Toca Race Driver, F1: 2010, Moto GP, Flatout II and Flatout Ultimate Carnage as well as loads of open world car based games such as Test Drive Unlimited I & II, Grand Theft Auto IV, III, Vice City, San Andreas, Saints Row II & III, Wheelman, Crash Time II & III , Burnout Paradise and even my old favourites Motocross Mania, Motocross Madness II, Midtown Madness I & II plus loads more too numerous to mention here, I could never get into this game. It was uncomfortable to control the cars with only keyboard controls to play the game with (that is no gamepad or wheel inputs) though the AI wasn't that hard to beat once you've mastered cornering/drifting. sometimes I got stuck on an obstacle and by the time I'd freed myself I'd be virtually half a circuit behind all the other cars, that said, once I'd mastered the game I was easily winning races at almost half a lap ahead of my opponents; (you can see in one of the images above how far ahead I was) I spent many hours when this was first given away trying to enjoy the game, which initially I did because I’d never bothered with previous incarnations of this type of racer, much preferring the first person style racer, but ultimately there wasn't much to keep me entertained once I'd mastered the game as the environments were rather boring and the circuits were relatively short.

windows 7 screen shot

windows 7 screen shot

Unfortunately I’m too biased to give a fair deal or to score this relatively old game because of the massive collection of racing/vehicle based games that I already own. I'm sure it's worth more than I'd give it. The graphics are okay, the music becomes very annoying, but thankfully that can be turned off or even changed, but make sure you convert any music you want to use to .ogg files and rename them to the four titles in the music folder (C:\Program files (x86)\Playrix Entertainment\Race Cars - The Extreme Rally\Sound\Music).

I can only suggest you download the game and give it a try yourself. It’s not a large download, so for those on capped bandwidth, you’re not going to lose a significant amount of your allowance and to those still on dial up, it should only take around 6 minutes to download .

If you liked Micro cars (from around 10 + years ago), you’ll probably like this one. There’s a bunch of this type of games available from MyPlayCity and Gametop which I’ve linked to below. There’s also an emulator that enables you to use a gamepad instead of the keyboard, but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the program at the moment. Hopefully someone with a better memory than me will post a download link for the program. :lol:











Problems:

If you are posting late in the day I would also suggest posting in the main giveaway forums in the game discussion section. If you've installed the game but it won’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at another time. Unfortunately if your problem is actually installing it then once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done until the game is given away again (though that isn't guaranteed). It’s always worth checking out the free games sites as sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them. MyPlayCity has the most with over 600 games to choose from. Today's game is available from Gametop and probably MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE

windows 7 screen shot

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More racing games:




You’ll find a totally free copy of this game, which they call Real Cars over on the Gametop site that I reference in my previous comment, though I didn’t mention this game then.

http://www.gametop.com/download-free-games/racing/

It’s always useful to know where to get the game free just in case you lose today’s giveaway to a full format or a fresh installation of windows. There are several car racing games available free from that site.

Another site to visit would be MyPlayCity where you’ll find nearly 40 racing games from top down to 3D, Cars and Trucks to drag racing and motorcycles. Check them out via the following link:

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

Finally you’ll find loads of free racing/vehicle related games in the giveaway forums via the wheeled games thread and the free games synopsis.

Free Games Synopsis (around free 2000 games available):

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4534

Wheeled Games thread:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2574#post-17105

For free I highly recommend Trackmania Nations, Death Rally and an online racing game called Darkwind. (Trackmania Nations is also online, but you can play a single player game. However, if you are a real racing aficionado, I can only suggest some of the latest commercial racing games such as Need for Speed: Shift 1 & 2 and the updated Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, though if you want a rally type game you can’t beat the Colin McRae Rally games (including Dirt and Dirt 2), Richard Burns Rally or for loads of ‘smashing’ fun try out the Flatout series of games (for cost I recommend Flatout 2 rather than Ultimate Carnage because they are basically the same game except Ultimate Carnage has had a face lift so you get a better looking game plus you race against 11 instead of 7 other cars' apart from that all the races are the same). Finally if you fancy an open world racing game why not try Fuel ; which was released nearly 2 years ago. It covers many of America’s beauty spots such as the Grand Canyon via thousands of miles of roads and tracks, or if you’re feeling dangerous explore on freeride There’s over 14 000 sq Km that you can explore; with gorgeous graphics, a day and night cycle plus weather systems that include hurricanes, this is a great game. (Check out the video below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P85HCuPc5fg









Games, Games, and yet more Games plus Download, Installation & Game play Problems:



If you have any problems installing or getting to work today's game please check out the FAQ’s thread over in the Game discussion forums. You’ll find them HERE for help.



For other deals such as Steam; this weekends deals include 66% off Fallout: New Vegas, 66% off Fallout 3 (both brilliant open world post apocalyptic RPG’s with hundreds of free mods to extend the life of each game immensely), 50% off The Elder Scrolls Online *there’s a monthly subscription attached, but it’s worth it, first subscription based game I’ve ever bought into and highly recommend it), Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition, 50% off Metal gear Rising: Revengeance, 66% off Fallout Classic Collection (the first two games plus Brotherhood of Steel expansion), 75% off the Prototype Franchise pack (excellent game , with open world aspect based on Long Island New York), 66% off Lost Planet 3 (also 66% off all 7 dlc), 75% off Postal 2, 50% off Breach & Clear, 75% off Lucius, 40% off Red Solstice (newly released action RPG, originally backed via Kickstarter), 75% off Hero Siege, 66% off Chaos on Deponia, 50% off Panzer Corps, 90% off Cargo Commander, 60% off Horizon, 85% off Two worlds Epic Edition (well worth getting this older RPG at only £1.04), 90% off Defy Gravity Extended, 75% off the Still Life Collection, 75% off Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 dual pack, 66% off Cities in motion, 75% off codename Panzer – Cold War, 50% off MDK Combo and 66% off Edna & Harvey: The Breakout. There’s over 100 Steam deals at present, including the Quakecon deals. Check back tomorrow for the Monday deals to change. There’s usually around 30 games with some dramatic deals on sale each Monday.

You'll also find many more game deals from Gamersgate, Gamestop, Greenman Gaming, Desura , Origin and GOG

There's a 20% off coupon via GMG that can be used with most digital downloads. You'll find all the deals from GMG HERE. Don't forget that Peggle is still available totally free from Origin. You will need to create an Origin account (EA Games) and install the Origin client before you can download and tie the game to your account. The deal ends sometime early August, when a new free game will become available. I also think that there’s at least one more freebie to be announced via the Bundle Stars site, so keep your eyes open.



To be honest there are too many game deals around too list them all. Just visit the sites I recommend above and I'm sure you'll find something that suits you for a decent price.








Check out the Game Discussion forums HERE for details of other games either free or on deals such as the Indie Game bundles (of which there are at least 20 live at the moment, and all of which contain some excellent games, or check out the four day sales at IndieGameStand, presently a game called Perfection is live; it’s a simple, soothing puzzle game about cutting shapes to fit into outlines. There is an infinite number of puzzles, each randomly generated to be unique and 'interesting'. If you pay above the average which at the time of writing stood at $1.74 you will also get two more indie games by the same developer called Phantasmaburbia an indie RPG Adventure game usually costing $14.99 and Sling It a slingshot shoot-em-up where you fight an endless army of Pollutnik robots by wrecking them piece by piece and throwing their debris back at them. Both games were designed originally for android phones. There's also a new game available from the Daily Indie Game site. Presently you can get Little Trus Man, a puzzle stacking /scrolling game’ (pay over the average which stands at $1.08 at the time of writing and get two Desura codes, one to give to a friend or family member).

The Bundle in a Box site is closing down soon; if you’ve purchased any bundles from that site you must download any drm free games and make a note of any unredeemed Desura and Steam codes before they close the site down on the 8th August. After that date you wont have access to them any longer. You can find the link over in the Game Discussion forums HERE
Most of the available bundles retail for around $5 give or take a few dollars, but you can pay as little as a dollar.

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A Request for helpl>:

Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game please take some time once you’ve played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are going to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with the search engines. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of 'potential' cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you've checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain what your reasons were for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with more block types for the levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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