Platform: PC

Manufacturer: Ratbag

Sprint Cars Playable Demo

The long awaited and much anticipated Dirt Track Racing-Sprint Cars game has finally hit the shelves. After many delays and rescheduled release dates the World of Outlaws sponsored Sprint car game is here at last. The fans of the WoO's series now have the unique opportunity to race side by side, wheel to wheel with the legends of this highly competitive series.

DTR-Sprint Cars is the second game in this dirt series done by RatBag Games that features one of the most sophisticated forms of Motorsports anywhere around. At just over 1600 pounds and packing 800 ponies under the hood, a Sprint car is a rocket ship with a wing on it to prevent it from flying.

Included in this game are many of the popular drivers from the WoO's: Steve Kinser, Jac Haudenschild, Danny "The Dude" Lasoski, Stevie Smith and Slammin' Sammy Swindell, just to name a few. It also features a Career mode, Instant Replay and Multiplayer capability and the Game Spy server applet for online racing.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Pentium II 266 with hardware acceleration or Pentium II 300 without.

Windows 95 / 98
32 MB Ram
60 MB hard drive space
4x CD-ROM Drive
Mouse
DirectX 7.0 compatible sound and video card
Recommended:

Steering wheel & pedals
Internet connection
Modem with 28.8 speed or better
3D hardware acceleration
Patience for online gaming&. ( This wasn't on the box, but it should have been! )

GAME FEATURES:

DTR-Sprint Cars features a fully adjustable AI that will satisfy most any level of competition that you choose, from novice mode to full hardcore simulation and everything in between. This includes damage, tire wear and the option to turn off the caution flag. Although I've not been able to recreate a blown tire or even a flat, the damage model does make the car drive erratically if you tag the wall or another car with too much force. With the tire wear option turned on, the cars do slow down as the tires get hotter and lose grip. However the tires are scaled for the length of the race you select, so a soft tire will still complete a 40-lap feature. This is not very true to life. It just seems a rational conclusion that if a soft tire turns to mush after 10 laps of racing then by the end of a 40-lap run, the car would be down to the rim.

The replay feature is an added bonus that was sought after by many of the original DTR fans. The replays are nice and give you the ability to save or view them in order to check online action to see how you got upside down or to critique your driving line. The camera angles are a little limited but for the most part the feature works well.

There are 20 tracks included. Some new ones were added from DTR but most are just the old tracks with some updated graphics and a different name to make them appear new. Some of the tracks are nicely replicated. The Knoxville, Eldora and Terre Haute tracks will knock your socks off. These tracks in particular are nice and wide and very well suited for Sprint Car racing. Some of the others are so narrow and oddly shaped that it is just not fun to race on them. For those of you that have bought DTR, the tracks from the earlier game and the add-ons can also be used in Sprints. Ratbag also added a feature to allow the driver to look left & right from the in-car view.

The Game Spy server applet that's shipped with Sprints will get you connected to race servers so you can join or host races. Or if you choose, you can easily host a race via TCP/IP configuration. Just find out what your current IP address is using your winipcfg.exe from Windows and send your IP address to your friends and that's all they'll need to join you. Just a word of warning here, if you don't have a fairly high bandwidth connection, the number that can join you and race comfortably is very limited. Very possibly the maximum will be no more than two through a 56k modem.

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