Okay here is a second comment from me on this game. My son and I played it in two player lan/ mode. It was a lot of fun, but...

While I couldn't hardly finish past last place unable to win enough money to upgrade or sometimes even repair my car my son is flying around in a hot rod that damned near laps us every race.

The game does do some auto repairs as well as bullet reloads when you are in between races. I don't know if this was just because I didn't have any money or if it will do it no matter what. However it seemed a bit random and repairs were usually partial.

Overall It was a lot of fun and besides the mention chunky interface I have no other gripes. Though the arrow controls suck a bit I was able to drive the car well on the free track.

Stephen, both Ignition and Re-Volt are loads of fun. Both are genuine commercial games that were abandoned by their makers/publishers. With Ignition, I found one can raise the resolution in the options screen. Then the game looks much less pixelated than in the default mode, but it also runs less smoothly.

Hi Locket, I was reading your comment #48 a day after the giveaway and was curious as to why you had to pick on it? You replied to my comments regarding the free online game Darkwind. Saying:

“Well, it did come out a year after Mad Cars, but I’m more inclined to believe that it’s “very loosly based” on a few old DOS games”.



It was actually inspired by the tabletop game Car Wars (which I’m sure itself was inspired by DOS games as most game are) and the Mad Max movies, but set in its own original universe. Though my comment wasn’t meant to be a direct comparison, just an indication of it’s similarity, though Darkwind is far more entertaining especially if you have time to really get sucked in by the whole scene.

Nice one! This game somewhat reminds me of the Remedy Enterteinment's old game, called Death Rally.

"people who want mouse controls probably want actually moving the mouse to steer the car - which is, frankly, stupid."

Actually the only that that is frankly stupid is your attitude that other people's opinions are worthless, which is something you have made clear to everyone with your offensive language. Just because you think that a racing game having mouse support is "stupid" does not make it so. You really need to grow up, Lockett.

This game is too similar to Tiny Cars. Thumbs down.

Loved it! Really enjoyed dropping mines right in front of the other cars, what a HOOT!

How do you save?

I exited the game expecting my progress to be saved and all was lost

# 53 was meant for Turtle Odyssey, Apologies.

Can't get to go to windowed mode. Insists on staying in full screen. I wish Realore et al would default to windowed rather than full screen. Great games though and thankyou.

Also, the minimum system requirements are ludicrously slow. Here are my specs, and the game still runs a bit choppy on my computer:
Celeron 2.2Ghz
Windows XP
DirectX 9.0c + Latest Monthly Updates
768MB DDR RAM
32MB Video RAM

The game crashed when I completed about 9 matches in Death Arena, and I lost all my progress.

Downloaded, installed and was playing game in less than 3 min. Game theme looks fun with many options. Great graphic and fun audio. The only thing that I was not thrilled about was manner of game control. I have problems with using arrow keys and wish there would have been other options available. After that being said, i will still continue trying to play "MAD CARS" and see if my problem controlling the car get any better before deciding to keep it or not. "MAD CARS" looks like another winner. Thank you GGOTD!

ive got this full verson and im downloading it again its that good

I have been very busy all day, and do not have the time to write a review now. Sorry.

>niteraven

"I find it very difficult and cumbersome to use the arrow keys, ctrl and Shft keys at the same time."

They're on the left side of the keyboard, too.

Why does everyone hate keyboard controls? They work well enough. I understand that it would be better if it had native joystick/gamepad support, but it's really not all that much of a hassle to set up XPadder once and forget about it. As for using the mouse, it has no place in a racing game.

>Whiterabbit

"the ‘Free’ online game called Darkwind: War on Wheels (anther 3D real time strategy and Racing game very loosly based on this game)"

Well, it did come out a year after Mad Cars, but I'm more inclined to believe that it's "very loosly based" on a few old DOS games.

>Mouse user

"The keys can be configured to anything you want and yes, that includes mouse buttons too."

I think that the people in question are angry about the lack of native joystick/gamepad support, rather than a lack of mouse controls. Even so, people who want mouse controls probably want actually moving the mouse to steer the car - which is, frankly, stupid.

This is a great game. Unfortunately, every time I've spent a few minutes playing it, it predictably crashes (the game, not the cars). Excellent game, but not stable. Bummer. :(

Hey Donald that ignition looks rather cool. :) Maybe I'll do a combo review that encompasses all the micro style car games around.

I forgot to mention GTA 1 and 2 are abandonware now. Just Google either or as you'll get lots of hits as I've seen it for free on several sites including www.gametop.com

Gr8 Game. Spend hours playing this. Thank U GAOTD

I don't know why people are complaining about not being able to use the mouse. The keys can be configured to anything you want and yes, that includes mouse buttons too.

Great game! Reminders me a bit of Super Cars... Not quite as good, but still fun! Thanks GGOTD!

Stephen, you may need to download DosBox to get Death Rally to work. I know I played it with Windows 98, and seem to recall getting it to work in XP, but it's a rather long time ago now... The Danish comments on the download page say that DosBox should make it work, at least if you configure sound off.

The loss of sound and music is rather big of a loss really, the music is great. You may however download music from Skaven's page directly (he's the composer for the game, unless I remember wrong and it was Future Crew colleague Purple Motion, whose works are also available for free download) and play them in Winamp while playing.

Two of the best freeware racing games are the abandonwares Ignition, which can be downloaded here ( www.abandonia.com/en/games/107 ), and Re-volt ( www.abandonia.com/en/games/908/Re-Volt.html ). Check them out!

Really fun game, polished and worth playing to the end to try out all the cars. Good stuff!

bello

That's if I can get it to work as it's a DOS based game.

Got it to work. Had to close comodo. Nice game :)

Thanks for the link Bovi, comment #35, that one looks good enough to be included in my replacemrnt thread for FreewareFans daily freeware fix, which has been suspended for a while.

Very similar to Remedy's 1996 game Death Rally, which is now desupported abandonware.

Mad Cars is close in quality too, although I still think I prefer the other (which I have spent all too many hours playing), due to some functionality which I miss in Mad Cars. Also, taking away everything upon winning a level is a real detractor, requiring a lot of grinding in easy, repetitive races to get back up. The sounds and music are not so great. But all in all, the game is good and the genre is hardly crowded, so this easily gets a thumbs up from me.

Nice game, reminds me a bit of "Rock'n'Roll Racing" from the old NES days, though Mad Cars ain't as good as this game was.

Thanks anyway

Wow,
I relieves my road rages on here, instead of real people

Pssst could someone at GAOTD inform realore that even windows95 would have a hard time running with only 12MB of RAM! Maybe old Windows3.0 could launch with that low a spec machine but you won't get directx 3.0 on it.

"System Requirements: Pentium 166 or higher, Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista, DirectX 3.0 or higher, 12 MB RAM, 1 MB Video RAM"

My guess is it is supposed tbe 128MB RAM and maybe a tiny bit more VideoRAM than 1MByte becuase if that is all it needs there is no need to mention it as you need that much just for a singe DirectX surface at any normal screen resolution.

GREAT Racing game!

Is this the same company that made Tiny Cars 2?

If this is the same company that made Tiny Cars 2 both racing games to me seem very similar in gameplay but this Mad Cars game has MUCH nicer graphics or so it seems to me. :)

Thank you for a fun racing game! :)

I am also VERY glad that it can be a 2 player game. Now My wife and I can play against each other. :)

Thank you giveaway and thank you Realore Studios. :)

Now hows about a nice free tycoon game for tomorrows giveawayoftheday. Pretty Please???? :D

GREAT Racing game!

Is this the same company that made Tiny Cars 2?

If this is the same company that made Tiny Cars 2 both racing games to me seem very similar in gameplay but this Mad Cars game has MUCH nicer graphics or so it seems to me.

Thank you for a fun racing game!

I am also VERY glad that it can be a 2 player game. Now My wife and I can play against each other.

Thank you giveaway and thank you Realore Studios.

Now hows about a nice free tycoon game for tomorrows giveawayoftheday. Pretty Please????

Let me start off by saying that I read the reviews of the day's game, each and every day. I do not go off of the thumbs up and down because I have learned it does not always mean a game is good or bad. That said, the review I look forward to the most is by Whiterabbit. There have been times when I had decided not to download the game but changed my mind after reading his review. Many times I am glad I did because even if I do not like it, chances are my kids or husband loved it.

Today's game while not a good fit for me, is perfect for my kids. They both love it & have already been fighting over who gets to play it next. Thanks for the great giveway!

HUGE thumbs up from me. The combination of skill, upgrades, and path to victory make this an extremely fun game. GG!

The controls are customizable, tracks are replayable, and your car is upgradeable. Amazing game for free. Ran fine on my XPsp2 machine.

Thanks GGOTD!

Arrow keys as control was all I needed to hear to give this game a pass. Thanks anyway guys, and for the awesome effort on your part.

Taking away your achievements after winning a Tournament killed it for me. It's a nice game otherwise but I don't really take joy in getting myself a nicely decked out car, only to have it taken from me, putting me back in the starter car and telling me to try it again. :|

great game :d. i can play it for hours. i have a game called Road Wars and it is like a 3D version of this.

thx GGAOTD and keep up the good work

THIS is takin a long ime to download i have lan internet and newly bought Windows vista ultimate laptop!

A+ game, really fun. No problems whatsoever, pure fun.

Glad I decided to download it as I am normally not very good at racing games especially using keyboard controls. It is fun to play and worth downloading.

Spyware Terminator Causes this game to freeze on startup. after I figgerd that out it runs good! A keeper ,I also like the software Bubby came up with thanks .It makes the game more fun.

I love this game. The controls are good, it just requires some ime to get used to them. While the interface is......well.....primitive, the game itself is fun. I love the old school retro feel. cant wait to go and play more.Well worth dowloading and definatly a keeper. More driving games please GGAOTD

Very nice game. Ecpecially my kids loved it.

This received 90% of nearly 200 votes with only 18 thumbs down previously. You can check out the comments from then by following the link below:

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


NiteRaven has hit the nail on the heads as far as I'm concerned. Not being a racing fan apart from a few such as MotoGP Racing, Motocross Madness i & II, Auto Assault (Which is loosly a 3D version of this) and Need for Speed Carbon, oh yeah! and the 'Free' online game called Darkwind: War on Wheels (anther 3D real time strategy and Racing game very loosly based on this game) :lol:

http://www.dark-wind.com/


You can see my full review by following the link below. There is a link at the end of the review that will enable you to return to the comments section.

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2561?replies=1#post-16880


There are also three links to games of similar style, Mad Trukers, KGB Hunter and Real Racing (the same game that was given away recently, ie Extreme Racing).

Thank you Realore and the Gamegiveaway team. Have a great Sunday

Game freezes at splash screen. No way out so have to force start my PC (XP). Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks BuBBY! Xpadder has my Saitek controller listed, will give it a try! This game looked like fun, but I am not that good at racing with a keyboard, lol.
Suki

From BuBBy: From memory, the controllers they list are the ones with the custom graphics, so you can get a skin for the program that looks like your controller. The software at xpadder should work with almost any controller, though.

The controls are really good, and easy, despite what others are saying.

I've played the game for a few hours, and the game unfortunately doesn't last as long as it first appears to. Each time you complete a championship, you lose everything, and start again, but this time with one new race track available and one new car available. This gets boring after a couple of championships, so you don't really get many hours of game play out of this, unless you're going to play multiplayer, which should be fun.

The developers have effectively made it so that players complete their championship approximately five times. People don't like highly repetitive games. That's why people get frustrated when they die in games -- they have to do the exact same work they just did all over again.

Still, thumbs up. I like these types of games.

I have played this game, its amazing. I think this is one of the best offerings of GAOTHD.
I had played this game some years ago, i had the demo version then. Now i can finally go ahead and play the full version.
If you guys are still contemplating whether to download this game or not, I would suggest you go ahead and give it a try, afterall you have nothing to loose!

This one's heaps of fun, unlike most of the others!