Giveaway of the Day - StreetRacer 2: Abandoned City Racing

Today’s game; called Street Racer 2: Abandoned City Racing unpacks to 167Mb. there’s no shortcuts installed, so you’ll have to create those yourself. It’s another of those games from Hand made games that doesn’t have a demo, nor a web site to visit so my usual practice of writing up a review the previous night (after at least spending an hour playing a demo or the full version if I already have it) wasn’t possible until after the game was given away, so this will be a short review. I may post some screen captures later today when I have the time, but at the moment I’ve got the kids to get ready for gymnastics. .

I was immediately struck by the similarity to the original StreetRacer game, given away by handmade games back in April of this year. Apart from the image; the menus and the available race tracks as well as the cars were exactly the same as StreetRacer. However, instead of a top down 2D racer we now get a full 3D racing game.

The handling of the car using the cursor keys was okay, but there was nothing of note to separate this from some of the freeware games I’ve mentioned below in the alternative racing games thread, for example, , CLC Dream Test Drive and BMW M3 Challenge. My advice go get Trackmania Nations, which is free. It’s got better graphics, a better feel, the ability to create your own race tracks plus there’s a massive online community who have created hundreds (if not thousands) of new tracks.

If you don’t have any racing games this may be an okay game to play around with; the younger kids may find it easier to play than some of the latest racing games, but to be honest, I’ll stick with my Fuel, Grid, Test Drive Unlimited, Race 07, GTR2, Dirt and Burnout Paradise City The Ultimate Box and the last few Need for Speed games, because those games have an element of realism and much better handling of the vehicles you get to drive than today’s game. Okay, if you can’t afford to purchase such games (I got a free copy of Grid with my new Graphics card), then this is probably a reasonable deal.

In all fairness I cannot give this a score without being biased due to the large number of excellent racing games I already have, so I’m not going to give it a score. It’s probably worth a download, especially if you don’t have any racing games, but I do think the majority of the community is going to find the game very weak despite the improvements that the developer of the game has included.

A big thank you goes out to Handmade Games and the game giveaway team for giving us free games at the weekend. To Handmade games I think this game would be greatly improved if you added power ups and maybe gave the 3D streets a post apocalyptic feel, which the name implies (IMO). You could also further enhance the game by adding weapons to the game, much like Death Track or Crashdays. For those interested in such games you could try the free online game Darkwind or the now free GTA I & II, though none are suitable for children.

I did encounter problems after playing a few levels. I’d minimized the game and when I tried to bring it back to the front, it froze my system and I had to re boot the computer using the reset switch. I lost all the review material that I’d been typing which was annoying. Unfortunately I wont be keeping this game. It is a free standing game, which means you can play it from a flash drive. To uninstall just delete the installed folder and any shortcuts you may have created.

The music can be easily changed for anything you like. the files are MP3, so all you have to do is change the names of the music your adding to the names already found in the appropriate folders, which can be found via the following path if you allowed the game to install to it’s default location:

C:\games\StreetRacer2\Data\Music

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Alternative racing games:

I think a large chunk of the community are going to be disappointed with todays racing game. It’s not very challenging. I won the first two races without even trying. So I’ve posted links to Gametop, which have at least 10 racing games for free, some of which, such as ATV Quadro Racing are half way decent. There’s also at least another 10 online racing games. Then there’s the Wheeled Games thread that lists loads more racing games and includes such classics as Trackmania, probably the best freeware racing game available to date. Finally, you’ll find several decent racing games via the free games synopsis, some of which are actually really good. There’s one online game I highly recommend called Darkwind. You can find details in the wheeled games thread.

Wheeled games thread:

Death Rally, Ignition, ReVolt, over 50 flash games, Darkwind, Trackmania Nations, Driving speed 2, BMW M3 Challenge,

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

Free Games Synopsis:

Bunny speed, Chase HQ2 Evo, CLC Dream Test Drive, Driving speed, Gene Rally, GLTron, Grand Theft Auto I & II, Ludo Race, Nuclear Motocross, Project torque (online game), Ragtime Racing, Retro Racers, Stunt Playground, Sunday Drivers, SuperChix 76, Vortex, 3D Game With a Guy Flying a Pedal Plane

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

Gametop:

You’ll find the following games available for download at Gametop A word of warning when installing any Gametop game. They are increasingly including toolbar and browser hijack practices, thankfully these can be avoided by un-checking the appropriate boxes during installation. All Gametop games do open up your internet browser when you close the game down, but this isn’t a browser hijack as your home page isn’t changed and once you click on the X, that’s it.

Real Racing, Mad Truckers, KBG Hunter, Monster Truck Challenge, Street Racer, ATV Quadro Racing, City Racing, Extreme Racers, Mad Racers, Star Racing, Crimson Road

http://www.gametop.com/category/racing.html

Then a few more from FreeGamePick:

http://www.freegamepick.com/en/racing.html

If you have some spare cash my advice for purchasing a racing game would be to get the latest game called Fuel. It has loads of different vehicles ranging from bikes and cars to trucks and ATV’s. Not only that you get to drive around some of the most beautiful areas of the US. the developer has used satallite imagery to recreate areas such as the Grand Canyon. there’s over a 100 000 miles of road to explore and 500 000 square miles of off road racing. If you’re looking for something a little cheaper Need for Speed Carbon or Test Drive unlimited ae good choices. You can pick either one up for $10 or less. The latter game has over a 1000 miles of road which you can drive around on and joinn various types of races. It’s a recreation of the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. I’ve still got a few older car orientated games to give away via the Wheeled games thread as well, which reminds me, someone contacted me recently about those and I said I still have London Racer. If they can PM me over in the forums to remind me who they are I’ll be happy to post the game onto them.

yippeeeee first comment…
excellent game but a little low on graphics though…