Hope the title gave you enough initiative if you are looking for something fresh.
Once again, we are gonna journey back to the past. A past where unlike now, scores meant less and substance meant more. A past where a little gray box held a special place in our hearts, not because of the guys that made it but because of the fact that for the most if us, this was our first taste of was quickly becoming one of the most sought out sensations that video-games presented us with: sense of speed. A past where the future was filled with speed pads, triple driller missiles and tunnels you could ride upside down. It is time to talk about control. It is time to talk about cars with wheels the size of an industrial girder. It is time to talk about...
Rollcage was an extremely popular and new driving game made by Psygnosis. It put you in the cockpit of one of six renegade drivers who were pitted against each other in a series of races in order to see who would be crowned the champion when the burning smell of tires and dust settled. Each of the drivers, apart from having a visually different car, tweaked it with different statistics, making each ride look AND feel different, which was a big thing back in 1999. There were some same denominators though which helped the title shine from the very first race. First of all, because of the enormous wheels, there was no wrong side up. Rollcage vehicles were built with 2 sides so when you messed up and hit a wall or a building, the car would simply roll on its other side and keep racing. Secondly, all cars had a double weapons system. You could fire both barrels when you happen to pick up, say two Afterburner Boosts for a combined effect or you could just fire one and keep the other in case of a clusterfuck. And finally, none of the cars had good handling. When turning around, because of the break-necking speeds and size, the car would soon spin out of control. Each turn had to be calculated then carefully tapped through and not simply by holding the left or right button on the direction cross. A wrong move could have you chasing your own tail.
The Championship took place on 4 different locations, each one featuring 3 separate stages. Cities, mountains, paradise resorts and even mining colonies on Mars! The paths were wide enough to fit the cars and were tailored having the somewhat unorthodox way of steering in mind. Each environment had destructible objects, from buildings to giant road signs. But whoever built these things must have filled them with propane or something cause the magnitude of the explosions is ginormous. The shockwaves unleashed are kind to noone and always send you flying if you happen to be close to them.
The debris are a bit hard to make out sometimes.
There was no immunity here and no take-backs. If you misfire, your weapons can easily be turned against you. This was a different type of timing and it was just the icing on the cake. Each stage featured a different type of terrain. Different terrain equaled different method of driving. The roads interfered with the fraction between them and the car, so you had to remember what style you were to follow once you progressed to the next stage. Also, because of the way the cars are built, air tends to flow over them, making them somewhat impervious to wind resistance and allowing them to ride on vertical surfaces such as walls or tunnel ceilings. From a point on, the stages featured speed pads and power ups in places not directly available. Finally, environmental hazards were produced each time a building toppled, creating rock-slides (what?!) that covered the roads with boulders.
The power ups were placed in specific spaces during a race by small robots and played an integral part in the experience because of their variety and ways to be countered. You have your standard missiles. They can either target structures or opponents. Then you have a cluster of missiles called Driller Missile which was basically a triple missile that went in a straight line, allowing you to hit multiple targets. The last of the missiles was the Leader missile that targeted the racer currently in first place. If you happen to accidentally fire it while being first...but hey, that's one of the reasons the shield is there.
Not enough Total Recall...
One of the most innovative and fun new weapons (which I haven?t seen since) was a Wormhole. It is what you think it is. A player fires it and it gets stuck on the hood of the next place. Once it gets big enough, it stops and then the target gets transported behind you. It is a lot of fun pulling it off if the person at the receiving end happens to be in the same room with you. Like most power ups however, it can be rid off. All you have to do is make the hole come in contact with something other that air. Good luck doing that without losing speed though.
Then, we have the Ice Beam which again does what you think it does but in a different way. It is not exactly a beam but more of a carpet that makes drivers ahead of you spin out of control. We have the obligatory Afterburner Boost and finally, a Continuum Warper whose duration of slowing down time depends on what position you are in.
The gameplay got even more beefed up once you get past the first two Championships. If this condition is met, a Policeman called Yuri decides to shut down the races by competing in the four final ones. It is kind of ironic that a person that is meant to inspire authority can become such a nightmare. The guy is an unbelievably fast and capable driver and thus makes for a formidable opponent (which to this very day, I have not yet beaten).
Also, I do not know how but every futuristic racing game ever made has a kick-ass soundtrack. Rollcage is no exception. I have no idea who Fatboy Slim is but this title?s music is nothing but slim when it comes to quality. Noone can mention this game and not think about its musical appeal. As whole the sound in the game is amazing. The Driller Missile is particular sounds incredible.
It doesn't matter what is going on on screen, how many weapons are fired or how many drivers there are. The frame rate handles it well with the total absence of slowdowns, being steady whether you are going with one or six hundred KPH. The motion blur is there to amplify the immersion but what kept me wanting more speed was neither that nor the way the beautifully designed buildings kept waving me goodbye as I was driving faster than a bullet.
Ah, there we are.
It was that every time you manage to break a certain speed limit, you would actually tear the earth?s atmosphere which was and still is unbelievably cool. It looks amazing and it feels amazing knowing that you are handling something that looks good, plays responsively and is as fast as an actual rocket.
The game was all about the single player, with time trials and arcade style being available although it did have a multiplayer feature called battle. 2 drivers were pitted against each other in a closed arena and try to blow each other to oblivion. The rules kind of changed here cause the only power ups available are the Boost and the Driller missile. The crucial change though is that the cars are now destructible.
Rollcage had everything going on for it but it was not perfect. The peculiar way of handling does not apply to everyone. Because the cars would spin out of control so easily, it is not hard imagining players tossing the controllers along the room after trying the same race for the n-th time. And when you toss in diamond-hard difficulty and Yuri, the later levels car really push your buttons. Literally.
A total of 12 stages by today's standards doesn?t offer much replayability and there are also some things that simply do not add up, even if this is not a Gran Turismo wanna-be. I mean, how can a simple street lamp send a 10 ton vehicle up in the air? A street lamp shouldn?t be able to explode in the first place. Also, it wouldn?t hurt to put different explosion sounds in the game. The one present never got old for me but I cannot speak for others. The menus could have been a bit more streamlined and polished, especially the pause menu. I am driving a double sided car and all I get are simple numbers on the screen. Something along the lines of a Wipeout kind of tech for the HUD would be great. One would think this is kind of a given cause Wipeout and Rollcage were made by the same company.
I am being awfully nitpicky cause when you play, you will not notice any of this. Mostly because you will be busy trying to figure out how to take the next turn without kissing the wall or how to P.I.T. the guy in front of you. You get to drive double sided, rocket-propelled tanks on Mars. Upside down! If that is not enough to make you wanna play this game, then you have red this far for nothing. The weapons are awesome, the game looks good to this day and I still cannot get over the fact that the atmosphere-shredding effect looks and feels so good. Find it somehow cause after eleven years, there still isn?t something that comes close to Rollcage. And this is the reason that for me, Psygnosis made something more than a game. A formula that has yet to be recreated successfully for more than a decade and given that gaming is a concept that tends to repeat itself, this really says a lot.
Once again, we are gonna journey back to the past. A past where unlike now, scores meant less and substance meant more. A past where a little gray box held a special place in our hearts, not because of the guys that made it but because of the fact that for the most if us, this was our first taste of was quickly becoming one of the most sought out sensations that video-games presented us with: sense of speed. A past where the future was filled with speed pads, triple driller missiles and tunnels you could ride upside down. It is time to talk about control. It is time to talk about cars with wheels the size of an industrial girder. It is time to talk about...
Rollcage was an extremely popular and new driving game made by Psygnosis. It put you in the cockpit of one of six renegade drivers who were pitted against each other in a series of races in order to see who would be crowned the champion when the burning smell of tires and dust settled. Each of the drivers, apart from having a visually different car, tweaked it with different statistics, making each ride look AND feel different, which was a big thing back in 1999. There were some same denominators though which helped the title shine from the very first race. First of all, because of the enormous wheels, there was no wrong side up. Rollcage vehicles were built with 2 sides so when you messed up and hit a wall or a building, the car would simply roll on its other side and keep racing. Secondly, all cars had a double weapons system. You could fire both barrels when you happen to pick up, say two Afterburner Boosts for a combined effect or you could just fire one and keep the other in case of a clusterfuck. And finally, none of the cars had good handling. When turning around, because of the break-necking speeds and size, the car would soon spin out of control. Each turn had to be calculated then carefully tapped through and not simply by holding the left or right button on the direction cross. A wrong move could have you chasing your own tail.
The Championship took place on 4 different locations, each one featuring 3 separate stages. Cities, mountains, paradise resorts and even mining colonies on Mars! The paths were wide enough to fit the cars and were tailored having the somewhat unorthodox way of steering in mind. Each environment had destructible objects, from buildings to giant road signs. But whoever built these things must have filled them with propane or something cause the magnitude of the explosions is ginormous. The shockwaves unleashed are kind to noone and always send you flying if you happen to be close to them.
The debris are a bit hard to make out sometimes.
There was no immunity here and no take-backs. If you misfire, your weapons can easily be turned against you. This was a different type of timing and it was just the icing on the cake. Each stage featured a different type of terrain. Different terrain equaled different method of driving. The roads interfered with the fraction between them and the car, so you had to remember what style you were to follow once you progressed to the next stage. Also, because of the way the cars are built, air tends to flow over them, making them somewhat impervious to wind resistance and allowing them to ride on vertical surfaces such as walls or tunnel ceilings. From a point on, the stages featured speed pads and power ups in places not directly available. Finally, environmental hazards were produced each time a building toppled, creating rock-slides (what?!) that covered the roads with boulders.
The power ups were placed in specific spaces during a race by small robots and played an integral part in the experience because of their variety and ways to be countered. You have your standard missiles. They can either target structures or opponents. Then you have a cluster of missiles called Driller Missile which was basically a triple missile that went in a straight line, allowing you to hit multiple targets. The last of the missiles was the Leader missile that targeted the racer currently in first place. If you happen to accidentally fire it while being first...but hey, that's one of the reasons the shield is there.
Not enough Total Recall...
One of the most innovative and fun new weapons (which I haven?t seen since) was a Wormhole. It is what you think it is. A player fires it and it gets stuck on the hood of the next place. Once it gets big enough, it stops and then the target gets transported behind you. It is a lot of fun pulling it off if the person at the receiving end happens to be in the same room with you. Like most power ups however, it can be rid off. All you have to do is make the hole come in contact with something other that air. Good luck doing that without losing speed though.
Then, we have the Ice Beam which again does what you think it does but in a different way. It is not exactly a beam but more of a carpet that makes drivers ahead of you spin out of control. We have the obligatory Afterburner Boost and finally, a Continuum Warper whose duration of slowing down time depends on what position you are in.
The gameplay got even more beefed up once you get past the first two Championships. If this condition is met, a Policeman called Yuri decides to shut down the races by competing in the four final ones. It is kind of ironic that a person that is meant to inspire authority can become such a nightmare. The guy is an unbelievably fast and capable driver and thus makes for a formidable opponent (which to this very day, I have not yet beaten).
Also, I do not know how but every futuristic racing game ever made has a kick-ass soundtrack. Rollcage is no exception. I have no idea who Fatboy Slim is but this title?s music is nothing but slim when it comes to quality. Noone can mention this game and not think about its musical appeal. As whole the sound in the game is amazing. The Driller Missile is particular sounds incredible.
It doesn't matter what is going on on screen, how many weapons are fired or how many drivers there are. The frame rate handles it well with the total absence of slowdowns, being steady whether you are going with one or six hundred KPH. The motion blur is there to amplify the immersion but what kept me wanting more speed was neither that nor the way the beautifully designed buildings kept waving me goodbye as I was driving faster than a bullet.
Ah, there we are.
It was that every time you manage to break a certain speed limit, you would actually tear the earth?s atmosphere which was and still is unbelievably cool. It looks amazing and it feels amazing knowing that you are handling something that looks good, plays responsively and is as fast as an actual rocket.
The game was all about the single player, with time trials and arcade style being available although it did have a multiplayer feature called battle. 2 drivers were pitted against each other in a closed arena and try to blow each other to oblivion. The rules kind of changed here cause the only power ups available are the Boost and the Driller missile. The crucial change though is that the cars are now destructible.
Rollcage had everything going on for it but it was not perfect. The peculiar way of handling does not apply to everyone. Because the cars would spin out of control so easily, it is not hard imagining players tossing the controllers along the room after trying the same race for the n-th time. And when you toss in diamond-hard difficulty and Yuri, the later levels car really push your buttons. Literally.
A total of 12 stages by today's standards doesn?t offer much replayability and there are also some things that simply do not add up, even if this is not a Gran Turismo wanna-be. I mean, how can a simple street lamp send a 10 ton vehicle up in the air? A street lamp shouldn?t be able to explode in the first place. Also, it wouldn?t hurt to put different explosion sounds in the game. The one present never got old for me but I cannot speak for others. The menus could have been a bit more streamlined and polished, especially the pause menu. I am driving a double sided car and all I get are simple numbers on the screen. Something along the lines of a Wipeout kind of tech for the HUD would be great. One would think this is kind of a given cause Wipeout and Rollcage were made by the same company.
I am being awfully nitpicky cause when you play, you will not notice any of this. Mostly because you will be busy trying to figure out how to take the next turn without kissing the wall or how to P.I.T. the guy in front of you. You get to drive double sided, rocket-propelled tanks on Mars. Upside down! If that is not enough to make you wanna play this game, then you have red this far for nothing. The weapons are awesome, the game looks good to this day and I still cannot get over the fact that the atmosphere-shredding effect looks and feels so good. Find it somehow cause after eleven years, there still isn?t something that comes close to Rollcage. And this is the reason that for me, Psygnosis made something more than a game. A formula that has yet to be recreated successfully for more than a decade and given that gaming is a concept that tends to repeat itself, this really says a lot.