Rollcage
Though most future racers revolve around some kind of hovering vehicle as is the case with WipEout, F-Zero and Jet Moto, a few others simply take wheeled vehicles to the next level. Most notable would be the Extreme G series with it's gravity-defying, sound barrier breaking motorcycles; but another, lesser known title graced the PlayStation around the same time. Rollcage. Featuring special vehicles that are never upside-down, Rollcage featured extreme high speeds similar to other future racers, but also a real inability to become stopped by the track's terrain. Weapons allowed you to destroy structures in your way, the design of the vehicles allowed you become flipped over completely (which happens often) and continue without skipping a beat and your high-speed means you're able to drive up the side of walls, buildings and corkscrew around the inside of tunnels.
Rollcage was unique in it's flippable-racer gameplay, which was oddly enough never copied with the exception of a similar but barely known game Firebugs. Now mind you, it may have something to do with how ridiculously insane the entire game becomes with you combine the high speed with elastic-quick acceleration and a seeming inability to crash. Instead of crashing and slowing down as is the case in most games, hitting a wall wrong, an ill-timed drop from the ceiling or a poorly landed jump means sending yourself spinning like a top on one of three different axis. Often orienting you in complete reverse and dead last.
I actually discovered that it was released on PC as well as the PlayStation. And turns out that it's become abandonware, so it's a completely free public download. Apparently there's still a group of people who play this together online regularly and a chap who used to work for Psygnosis who continues to update the game with various bug fixes. So now you can go ahead and run this 1999 racer in 1920x1080 on your current PC. In fact, while writing this I actually went ahead and installed the game. It's even more ridiculous that I even remembered. In fact, the only loss it seems with the abandonware version is that it doesn't include the fantastic soundtrack. A soundtrack which included tracks from Fatboy Slim, Danmass and others; playable like most PS1 titles right in your CD player as it placed data on the first track and left the rest of the CD in a standard audio format.
So, if you're like me and had a blast with this game over a decade ago, go nuts and follow the link above to give it another go. It takes a bit to get a grip on the over-the-top physics, but it's still a solid racer that plays great on a modern PC.
Though most future racers revolve around some kind of hovering vehicle as is the case with WipEout, F-Zero and Jet Moto, a few others simply take wheeled vehicles to the next level. Most notable would be the Extreme G series with it's gravity-defying, sound barrier breaking motorcycles; but another, lesser known title graced the PlayStation around the same time. Rollcage. Featuring special vehicles that are never upside-down, Rollcage featured extreme high speeds similar to other future racers, but also a real inability to become stopped by the track's terrain. Weapons allowed you to destroy structures in your way, the design of the vehicles allowed you become flipped over completely (which happens often) and continue without skipping a beat and your high-speed means you're able to drive up the side of walls, buildings and corkscrew around the inside of tunnels. Rollcage was unique in it's flippable-racer gameplay, which was oddly enough never copied with the exception of a similar but barely known game Firebugs. Now mind you, it may have something to do with how ridiculously insane the entire game becomes with you combine the high speed with elastic-quick acceleration and a seeming inability to crash. Instead of crashing and slowing down as is the case in most games, hitting a wall wrong, an ill-timed drop from the ceiling or a poorly landed jump means sending yourself spinning like a top on one of three different axis. Often orienting you in complete reverse and dead last.So, if you're like me and had a blast with this game over a decade ago, go nuts and follow the link above to give it another go. It takes a bit to get a grip on the over-the-top physics, but it's still a solid racer that plays great on a modern PC.
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