Guess The Game V2 - VirtuaIceMan's quiz round 4 - Futuristic racers!

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 27, 2017

Time for something a bit more "alien"; futuristic racing games! This is a mega-edition for the holidays, so there's a LOT to guess... 42 games in fact! I would hope that, despite this site being focused on sims and the like, many people here might have at least played the odd futuristic racer. And some of these are definitely odd...

As before, these are split into Easy/Medium/Hard categories. Some categories might have more than one game...

I'll reveal the answer in a week or two (or as soon as they are guessed!).

One clue:

Easy = readily available to buy still, or fairly well known in the past.
Medium = maybe not available to buy (apart from eBay); a bit less known.
Hard = good luck on guessing these!

Futuristic Easy 1: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - A.I.M. Racing - there were two A.I.M. open world shooting type games, which then lent their world to this rather tasty futuristic racing game, which is still available on Steam.

Futuristic Easy 2: identified by me, as the original game has just had a 600MB update which makes it look nothing like this screenshot any more! Cologne - a super-basic clone of Grin's Ballistics racing game, this is currently available on Steam.

Futuristic Easy 3: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Flashout 2 - a light WipEout clone, this is the sequel to a game that never released beyond it's native Poland. Also on Steam.

Futuristic Easy 4: not guessed by anyone! Glacier - produced by budget developer Team 6 Games, this sees you race cars down glaciers, for no real reason at all!

Futuristic Easy 5: not guessed by anyone! Glacier 3 - The Meltdown - this sequel (available still on Steam) is a much worse racing game than the original version, possibly one of the worst racing games of all time!

Futuristic Easy 6: correctly guessed by @Taggy4485 - Nelson Piquet's Grand Prix Evolution - not so widely available now, but fairly well-known, this was a floaty futuristic racing game which used the name of Nelson Piquet to... not do much really!

Futuristic Easy 7: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Nitro Stunt Racing: this is the "Take Off" version, with some extra cool tracks. This excellent semi-clone of Stunt Car Racing is still available to buy online now! However the developers have gone off to focus on their Simulation Centers in France, where you can race this (and F1/karts/ice racing) in large simulator setups.

Futuristic Easy 8: not guessed by anyone! Nulldrifters - another game on Steam, this one is sort-of an F-Zero clone.

Futuristic Easy 9: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Powerdrome - this Xbox game was ported to the PC. It's a semi-sequel to one of the earliest futuristic racers (from 1990) which had the same name.

Futuristic Easy 10: correctly guessed by @Frank Hilbrands - Quantum Rush Champions - yet another futuristic racer on Steam. This one released as an online game initially, before being retooled as a more classic single player type affair.

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 27, 2017

Futuristic Easy 11: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Scorcher - this one should be quite well-known, as it's from former graphics demo scene team Zyrinx. It's also the only game I recall where you race around as men in glowing balls!

Futuristic Easy 12: correctly guessed by @Taggy4485 & @POOTERMAN - Speed Challenge - Jacques Villeneuve's Racing Vision - not widely released on PC worldwide (I imported this from Canada), it uses the F1 Racing Championship engine to power what Jacques Villeneuve thought F1 might evolve into (essentially remote-controlled cars driven via VR headsets remotely). It's verging on a simulation handling though!

Futuristic Easy 13: not guessed by anyone! Warp Rider - a fairly recent, pretty terrible racing game on Steam. Dodge or shoot objects = boring!

Futuristic Easy 14: this is very clearly WipEout, but what makes it different? correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - WipEout (ATI 3D Rage version) - It's the rare ATI 3D Rage version, the only version of the original game to feature 3D acceleration on PC (the DOS version was 256 colour low-res VGA)! Luckily, you can play this with an ATI 3D CIF wrapper, as seen here.

Futuristic Easy 15: correctly guessed by @Zuffenhausen Weiss & @POOTERMAN - XMODULE - available now on Steam Early Access, this racing game from a 2 person team in Ireland lets you build cars from components, however the devs seem to have got hung up on supporting 3D printers (to let you print the cars) rather than completing the game!

Futuristic Easy 16: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Zone Raiders - still available in varios places online - this futuristic racing game was noteable for being Image Space Inc's (rFactor, etc) first racing game!

Futuristic Medium 1: not guessed by anyone! Chaos Ride - technically this is the updated "Super Mega Ultra Turbo Extreme Edition!"; this was briefly available on Steam before the dev pulled it due to a combination of poor reviews and something to do with tax (or something). It's a tunnel racing floating bike game, a bit like Grin's Ballistics. You might still be able to get it on Desura.

Futuristic Medium 2: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - CyberSpeed - ancient DOS based racing game, this one's interesting as the vehicles are attached to a "string" along the middle of the track, and rotate 360 degrees around it!

Futuristic Medium 3: correctly guessed by @Frank Hilbrands - Death Road - still available from a few online stores, this is a another WipEout style game. Uses a LOT of blur effects!

Futuristic Medium 4: not guessed by anyone! Future GPX Cyber Formula SIN Cyber Grandprix 2 Boost Pack - this is one of a couple of racing games based on a crazy Japanese manga series! Seems to encourage a lot of drifting!

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 27, 2017

Futuristic Medium 5: correctly guessed by @Rot Teufel - Future GPX Cyber Formula SIN DREI Plus - this is the second of a couple of racing games based on a crazy Japanese manga series! You swap the car between a fast mode that won't corner, and a slow cornering/drifting mode. Very Japanese!

Futuristic Medium 6: correctly guessed by @LUkAa996 - Millennium Racer - Y2K Fighters - lesser known, TRON-like futuristic racing game, with weird floating shell craft.

Futuristic Medium 7: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - S.C.A.R.S. - or Super Computer Animal Racing Simulator, this is a Mario Kart-esque racing game from Ubisoft. The basic premise is that bored super computers decided to make their own race cars that looked like animals. Um, yeah.

Futuristic Medium 8: correctly guessed by @Rot Teufel - Safari Biathlon Racer - this is a lightweight (yet clunky) futuristic racing game, with possibly the most strange name of all time!

Futuristic Medium 9: correctly guessed by @Frank Hilbrands - StateShift - for some reason, this PSP game was ported to the PC. It allows you to morph the car between various modes, but it also features a poor frame rate, low resolution and clunky handling. Could have been a lot better.

Futuristic Medium 10: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Thrust Twist + Turn - this is now a pretty ancient Stunt Car Racer style game. Glitchy handling, but with a hidden debug mode you can force the game to draw the entire track, which makes it a bit more interesting, at least.

Futuristic Medium 11: correctly guessed by @Gevatter - Track Attack - Changes Everything - rather odd DOS racing game from years gone by. It's raison d'etre was that the tracks change/evolve lap -after-lap (predating GRID 2 and Sonic & Sega Racing Transformed by years). Sadly, despite the menu running in SVGA 640x480 resolution, in-game it dropped to low-res VGA resolution, yuck!

Futuristic Medium 12: correctly guessed by @Zuffenhausen Weiss - Tunnels Of Armageddon - old DOS game where you race down, erm, tunnels.

Futuristic Medium 13: correctly guessed by @Rot Teufel - Wreckin' Crew - Drive Dangerously - a cartoon-like, more modern version of Mario Kart (or something like BC Racers). I thought this was cancelled then found out it actually came out!

Futuristic Hard 1: correctly guessed by @Blackmarch7 - AceSpeeder2 (would have accepted AceSpeeder or AceSpeeder3 though!): one of a series of F-Zero-like games from Japanese developer Raingraph. Sadly if you want to buy it you need to do so from a Hentai NSFW store (although there's many free demo versions of the games on the developer's site).

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 27, 2017

Futuristic Hard 2: not guessed by anyone! Air-Rush - published by SelectSoft in the USA, this is a little known futuristic racing game with a steampunk style to the graphics. There's an interesting "black hole" weapon that drags racers in, delaying them a little. Otherwise it's pretty clunky.

Futuristic Hard 3: not guessed by anyone! Armobiles - seemingly only available in some European languages, although there is an English demo (shown here). It's a bit like Carmageddon, if Carmageddon was a pretty twitchy, less fun game.

Futuristic Hard 4: not guessed by anyone! Battle Race 3D - full 3D version of the original Battle Race game. This is a German futuristic game that plays a bit like a simplified version of Descent.

Futuristic Hard 5: not guessed by anyone! Doomsday Racers - pretty tragic budget racing game. Looks like you have weapons but you don't, making it that much more boring!

Futuristic Hard 6: not guessed by anyone! Final Racing - subtitled "Cyber Space 2001 - Hot Blood Version", this is a little known budget game from years gone by. The graphics look actually quite respectable, but the vehicles handle like slugs, and if you touch any other cars you come to a dead stop (even if they ram you from behind, they will go off into the distance, whilst you stop moving!).

Futuristic Hard 7: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Flashout 3D - this original version of Flashout was only released in Poland, due to conflicts with the publisher.

Futuristic Hard 8: correctly guessed by @Mantas Jokubauskas - Lagsters - subtitled "Hyper-Speed Tunnel Action", this is fairly close to Grin's Ballistics, although you have customisable cars with multi-mounting point weapons that can be attached. It was released in German (mostly) but I managed to get hold of the UK language files, hence the screenshot shown here.

Futuristic Hard 9: correctly guessed by @Zuffenhausen Weiss - Maximum Roadkill - ancient DOS pre-rendered video racing game; a bit like Megarace. Handles terribly and looks a mess. You can, however, run over penguins for a speed boost (really!). Interesting fact: the studio behind this, BITS Studio, also made Sega Arcade Gallery on Game Boy Advance, amongst many other games.

Futuristic Hard 10: correctly guessed by @apocapollo - NASCAR Racers - futuristic racing game aimed at kids, based on a short-lived cartoon series. It's actually quite a fun little game, with interesting weapons like a spring that lifts you over and ahead of your rivals. There's also a crazy final race inside the large Motosphere with a suspended track going in all directions! Worth a look.

Futuristic Hard 11: not guessed by anyone! Rocket Racer Championship - this was a free game from 2008, made to promote the Rocket Racer Championship (a real-life racing series along the lines of Red Bull Air Racing, but with rocket powered planes). However the real-life series came to nothing, leaving this game as an interesting footnote in history.

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 27, 2017

Futuristic Hard 12: not guessed by anyone! Tanaka 3D - a very unknown futuristic racing game. This exists on the PC as a demo (which almost seems unlimited). A copy of the Apple Mac version surfaced, and someone online found you could combine the Mac files with the PC demo to get essentially the whole game. Which is the nearest you can now get to playing it, as the company who owned the license folded, and the original dev no longer has the source code!

Futuristic Hard 13 (two images) - can anyone name the games and/or the story behind them?: correctly guessed by @POOTERMAN - Voltage/Racers - possibly the most interesting game of all, and also the saddest: Voltage was an tasty looking, fast, F-Zero GX style racing game from Czech developers IBA Games. It released in a few regions, notably Russia. However the English version was picked up by a publisher who either never released it, or went under before they did. The game was then picked up by infamous trademark claimant Tim Langdell, who had it redesigned/rebranded as Racers (in order to get into a trademark dispute with a game called Killer Edge Racing). I think I'm one of the few people to actually own a copy! Sadly the game was gutted of the pretty graphics that Voltage had, so it now looks almost black & white and isn't really as fun to play as it could have been.

Taggy4485 · Dec 30, 2017

Easy 6: Grand Prix Evolution

i remember getting this as well as speed thief in the RacerPack for PC

Gevatter · Dec 30, 2017

Medium 11: Track Attack

Rot Teufel · Dec 30, 2017

Futuristic Medium 5: Future GPX Cyberformula SIN 3+ (2012)
Futuristic Medium 8: Safari Biathlon (one of the worst racing game made)
Futuristic Medium 13: Wrecking Crew

@apocapollo · Dec 30, 2017

Futuristic Hard 10: NASCAR Racers, based on the Saturday morning cartoon, of course

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 30, 2017

Rot Teufel said:
Futuristic Medium 5: Future GPX Cyberformula SIN 3+ (2012)

That's not the name I have for this one, although it's close!

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 30, 2017

Updated original posts with guessed games + notes on them!

StevieSX · Dec 30, 2017

I'm going to guess that Easy 14 is actually BallisticNG.

Mantas Jokubauskas · Dec 30, 2017

Hard 8: That's Lagsters! I played it myself before - still have the disk somewhere...

Luka Berk · Dec 30, 2017

Medium 6 is Millennium Racer: Y2K Fighters. Just played through it actually

VirtuaIceMan · Dec 30, 2017

Updated again. Still to be identified:
Easy 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16
Medium 1,2,3,4,5,7,9,10,12
Hard 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,11,12,13

Hint: many of them are still on sale, especially the Easy ones...