Giveaway of the Day - StreetRacer

Today’s game is a 47.3Mb download from Hand Made Games (not from the developer ‘HandMade Game’ who made that really interesting puzzle game called Rooms: The Main Building), which means it’ll be a short review because there was no web site for me to download a demo, which I usually do if I don’t already own the game. That usually enables me to prepare a review in time for when the game is first posted.

To be honest, there’s several games of this micro cars genre available for free 24/7, (see below for details); however, they are from distributors such as Gametop and FreeGamePick, so you do have the annoyance of the browser opening when you shut the game down (this is totally innocuous though) and in some cases when you install the game there’s the possibility of you getting a toolbar or even a full blown browser hijack; though this is avoidable so long as you pay attention to your installation as it proceeds, ensuring you uncheck the inevitable tick boxes as they appear.

The Game:

Race to victory in the world of street racing. Finish first at each race to participate in more competitions.

As with most games from this project you will have to note where the game is installed to, so that you can create a desktop icon. By default it’s suppose to install to C:\games\, though for me it tried to install to the same folder as The Mysterious City: Cairo, (though it may be a different folder, depending upon what your last game giveaway installation was – I didn’t bother installing any of last weeks games as I already had them, so you may find it tries to install to the last game you got from the giveaway project, so you may have to change the installation path). The game installs to a 127Mb folder, more than twice the original zipped folder.

Starting the game seems to take forever once you’ve clicked the games executable icon. On finally opening, you are presented with a decent looking image of a race car with a simple menu that includes, Continue, New Game, Options and Help. The options menu is simple with only sound and music volume sliders. The help menu contains all the key bindings unfortunately, there’s no facility to remap them:

Controls:

• Left Cursor key…………………….Steer left
• Right cursor key…………………..Steer right
• Forward cursor key……………….Accelerate
• Back cursor key…………………….Decelerate
• Space…………………………………….Brake
• Pause/Exit…………………………….Esc
• R…………………………………………….Respawn

On starting a new game you can choose between a quick race and tournament. Starting a new race for the first time requires you to enter a name to create a profile; whenever you restart a game you are always brought to the name selection box so you can set up multiple profiles. There was already a profile set up called Alex. Selecting quick race opens up a menu with six levels called Park District, Night City, Downtown, Park District, Night City, Downtown Industrial and Snow City; however all but the first level are locked. After selecting the first level you are taken to the car selection screen, where you’ll find three cars; the Razor, Diablo or Fireball, however at the start only the Razor is available. You have to win races to unlock both the other cars and new courses. Both the Single race and tournament are virtually the same. Each race comprises of three laps. Looking at the six tracks that are available in this game, it appears that they get progressively harder; Park District being the easiest and Snow City the hardest.

Images:

All on one page

As a Slideshow

Conclusion:

I found the game a little lack luster. Most of the free alternatives I’ve quoted below have more interesting graphics and either comparable steering or better.

This game could be improved if all three cars and all the tracks were unlocked from the start, but to be honest, even then, the control of the car is rather sluggish, plus the view point actually made my eyes funny and I felt a little ’sick’ after running a couple of races, so didn’t really progress to the later levels. I found once you got ahead of the pack it was relatively easy to remain ahead unless you crashed in which case it was hard to maneuver back into the race. There was no progressive acceleration, or deceleration when you used the forwards or reverse keys, (well virtually none); you just had the one speed, so it makes a mockery of the whole racing concept in my opinion. The cars looked nice, but were effectively 2D due to the top down viewpoint. I would suggest going for a free copy of GTAI & II; there’s a whole city to drive around in and loads of different cars, vans and lorries, as well as other vehicles such as trains and even a tank, or if you want a 3D game, try Trackmania or the BMW game. You don’t have to follow the missions in GTA I or II, which some may find not to their taste; just use it as a driving game.

I can’t in all honesty give this more than 5 out of 10, but in reality would give it less as it was not enjoyable to play. However I’d like to thank Hand Made Games for their continued support of this project. I have enjoyed some of their games, unfortunately, this isn’t one of them. I would suggest you improve the acceleration and deceleration issues and possibly add mouse control or even joystick/driving wheel, which may improve game play. I’d also step the magnification back a little so that you can see more of the race track, add more vehicles and even more tracks. You could even add a track editor, which would enable the user to create their own tracks, like you can with Trackmania. The good points about the game (apart from the decent looking 2D cars was the presence of a mini map, which gave you forewarning of a turn, plus warning arrows that appeared just before a left or right turn appeared. With these two additions I was able to steer the car reasonably well and win a race after my first few attempts. It was unfortunate that I couldn’t carry on to see how the un-lockables worked as I had to stop after winning my first race due to the nausea

Problems

The game does seem a little buggy. Whenever I took a screenshot I had to restart the game (so there is only several taken, though they will give you a feel for the game), and on a few occasions, the game crashed on restarting, though I was able to get it to run after a few restarts.

If you have problems running the game try clearing out your temporary folders and cache. Change your screen resolution if it’s set to one of the higher levels and as a final solution defrag’ your drive (especially if you’ve not bothered doing it for a long time); alternatively, try one of the games I’ve listed below; there’s quite a few to choose from

Removing the Game:

You won’t find this in the add/remove menu; so to uninstall the game you t have to delete the installed folder. (see above for probable path) The game is free standing, so can be moved from one computer to another as well as be played from a flash drive. You can also back it up onto an external drive or DVD/CD.

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Alternatives:

I’ve included the following games as alternatives to today’s game Street Racer. If you like car games or racing games, I’m sure you’ll find some that interest you. There’s a variety of types, including 3D, isometric and top down games. I’ve also added loads of online versions as well, so there’s no need to download anything if you don’t want to. There’s even a space racer as well. The majority of the games below are from either Gametop or FreeGamePick, though I have added some that are from independent (indie) developers. All are free, though not all are ‘technically’ freeware (all of the Gametop and FreeGamePick are actually commercial games, but are offered free with the browser opening to the distributors web site – which can be a useful thing as they update their catalogues frequently), plus there’s an old DOS based abandonware game as well. As such you should be aware that when closing any of the Gametop and FreeGamePick games down, your browser will be opened to the respective games distributors home page; this is totally innocuous though so there’s no need to worry – I’ve tested all the game s mentioned for malware and they come out clean. However, Gametop has recently started to add toolbar and real browser hijacking codes into the installation process. You are still able to uncheck the tick boxes (unlike with MyPlayCity games {apart from a few}) during installation though, so all these games are worth downloading if you like car, or racing games generally.

Download Mad Race

Download Extreme Racers

Download Real Racing

Download Mad Truckers: (online version available as well)

Downloading City Racing

Download Street Racer

Download Star Racing

Download ATV Quadro Racing

Download Racing Impossible

Download Nuclear Motocross: (online version available as well)

Download Intense Racing 2

Download Intense Racing

Download KGB Hunter (online version available as well

Online Games:

Play Mars Buggy Online

Play Crazy Orcs Racing Online

Play Moon Buggy Online

Play Moto Rush Online

Play Deadly Race Online

Play Race Rush online

Play Micro Racers Online

Play Micro Racers 2 online

Play Jet Boat Racer online

Play Monster Truck Rampage online

Play 4 Wheel Madness online

There’s several more online racing games that you can play via freegamespick, including, Cone Crazy, Destruction, Diesel & Death, Dirt Bike 2 & 3, Drag Racer 3, Get a Grip Bike, Hawaiian Runner, Hummer Rally, Mercedes AMG Drift, Sim Taxi, Stunt Dirt bike, Superbike GP, Turbo Spirit and World Drifting.

I posted quite a lot of car related games in a thread called wheeled games, which can be found in the games discussion forums. Quite a few of the games mentioned above are already posted in that thread, but there are even more racing games to find, including the first two Grand Theft Auto games (not including the London expansion pack though), and several older DOS games that will require DOSBox. Wizzard posted a sticky that deals with DOSBox, so if you not sure about how to use it, check out his post in the Games Discussion forums. There’s links to over 50 online browser games and a really cool full blown online racing game called Darkwind: War on Wheels.

Here’s the link:

Check out Darkwind: War on Wheels

You’ll also find some racing games in the free games synopsis thread found on the front page of the forums (sticky); for example Bunny Speed (ideal for the kids), Crimson Road (more like a wheeled shooter), Driving Speed (brilliant graphics, but read the info first as toolbars try to install themselves), Gene Rally, GLTron, Ludo Race, Paper Flight, Highway Havoc, Screamer (an old Classic),Vortex and 3D Game With a Guy Flying a Pedal Plane.

Here’s several more racing games including a great BMW racing game (created by BMW), a retro DOS game and one of the Best free car racing games of them all:

Download BMW M3 Challenge

Alternate Download link for BMW M3 Challenge

Download Highway Pursuit

Download Quarantine 2: Road Warrior

Download Hot Cars (track editor available)

Go to the Trackmania home site for download

There are loads more of this genre available for free; some of which will be posted over the next several months over in the forums as part of the free games for the weekday’s project. (Assuming the project continues).

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By the way, if you find the majority of the above freeware games of Too low a quality like one particular community member mentions, then try buying some. GOG (Good Old Games) have some excellent deals on the original Flatout game, a great demolition Derby/Stock Car racing game, or Colin McRae Rally. both of which cost less than $6. I much prefer buying games like any of the recent Need for Speed games, or if you just want to drive around a city try getting Test Drive Unlimited. there’s over a thousand miles of road to burn using a variety of really well modelled cars, or try the latest Burnout Paradise Ultimate Box, a brilliant game if you like multiplayer games. I could mention dozens of racing games, but would recommend the few I mentioned above, or if you want pure racing games try the special edition of Race 07 which bundles with GTR2, and retails for around $15. It’s a highly moddable game with loads of extra content to download from the internet, or as a final suggestion Racedriver Grid.

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How do i uninstall this game? I love ggotd but am tired of these games that I cant seem to uninstall.