Hi,
I am currently also cracking my brains out trying to remember the name of a combat racing game I used to play back in the early 2000s. I am not sure when the game came out but it was definitely on a windows platform.
I have searched online and I am quite certain that it is not Death Rally or Re-volt and certainly not many of the other popular combat racing titles that would easily come up on google.
Here are some of the details that I can remember.
1) Like many racing games, you start off with a bit of cash and can slowly upgrade your vehicle or get a new car as you progress. You can buy weapons like Gatling guns to rockets and missiles. Aside from that you can also buy traps like oil slicks and some others which I can't remember.
2) I generally recall the game being a top-down racing game but it may actually just be a third person / top-down type as I remember being able to see quite ahead of me and the angle seemed top-down. Perhaps it was somewhere in the middle.
3) I remember the first car being somewhat like a square version of a Volkswagen Beetle type and you progress upwards to a car that somewhat resembled a mustang. However, I definitely do not recall the game naming those as actual cars, meaning that it was not like a need for speed or other car games where the cars in-game represent actual cars.
4) At some point you can also just use a middle tiered car that you purchased and fully upgrade the engines and weapons etc and you can still win races. But at the harder levels, I remember there being a Van vehicle as well, and the van vehicle would allow more capacity or something like that. But other vehicles would be perhaps more maneuverable but less weapon capacity.
5) I know that there were some blue rockets and they would home to your target. Also, at the very late levels, you would jump to the Moon to race there and now you have to another factor that comes into your races which is gravity. I can't recall if there were any jumping type of power ups along the roads that would boost you forward like many other games but perhaps there was, just that I can't remember.
6) I recall being able to be ahead of the computers and when you past them on the track as they lag behind, you can still shoot them if you are fast enough, and vice versa.
I am sorry if the information I provided is not detailed enough but I would really know the game when I see it but I just can't seem to find it.
The graphics are not fantastic but you can definitely see the bullet trails when you fire the Gatling gun etc and the black oil slicks you can spam on the road. And all hell breaks loose when you start the race because everybody is just spamming their weapons.
There is no multiplayer if I recall.
Thanks, and I hope you guys can help me find this childhood gem I used to play!