Powerslide Developer: Ratbag Publisher: GT Interactive Category: 3D Racing System Req: P233, 32Mb Ram, 300Mb HD, D3D/3dfx card, Win95/98 Might look like: Dethkarz Date posted: 9 May '99 Written By: Bjorn - This game was tested on P166, 32mb Ram, Voodoo Graphics, Win95 - A little Introduction Early in the 21st century, the ozone layer disintegrated. As the price of sunscreen skyrocketed, any species not turning a profit in the global marketplace soonfound themselves unable to pay for UV protection. Bees, flies, and all the other creepy-crawlies got their sensitive eyes fried. No bees, no pullination. No pollination, no crops. No crops, starving humans. Starving humans, global war. The decimation of billions of people is tragic, but the cars they left behind are an entertainment opportunity too good to refuse. Now, lawless gangs of feral joyriders race through deserted streets and countryside, docklands, sewers, and multi-level parking lots. Slapping together grunt machines of awesome power, they have become known as Powersliders. Until recently, Powersliding was an illicit venture for an abusive and exclusive bunch of psychotic motor lunatics. Although it started as an exclusively feral persuit, and banned by most Corporations, a bunch of Corporate rebel racers have recently joined the action and brought their radical new technology to the contest. The Manual Powerslide's manual comes with 3 languages: English, Italiano and Español. The manual counts approximately 60 pages. Divided by 3 languages makes a good 20 pages thick for each language. Not bad for 'a racing game'. In this manual you won't find any fancy shots. There are a few that really are sweet but most of them are black-white in-game shots ... good to give you a first glimpse on the game before you play it but nevertheless ... it could have been a 'bit' prettier. Hell, that's just my opinion really. :) When reading some sections of Powerslide's manual I noticed that they did include a lot of information on almost every aspect of the game. And it makes me happy that even for a racing game, a developer spends a lot of time in making its manual worth reading. Ratbag could just include a 5 page cd-insert manual as well. But they didn't and thumbs up for this one. Slide with Power! Ratbag. A name that didn't was familiar to most of us when their new game, Powerslide was displayed on the shelves of your local computer store. It was a very futuristic racing game where you have to race with buggy's on magnificent realistic tracks. The game even supported the latest new technologies like force feedback input devices, EAX compatible,optimized for 3DNow!, ... Even to me, the name Ratbag as a game developer was unknown ... until its distributor sent me a copy of Ratbag's first racing game, Powerslide. And then, the fun began. This new game developer, Ratbag makes a very fast competitive entry with their new futuristic title, Powerslide. It is no suprise to anyone how great the game looks the first time you play it if you know that they have worked on it for over 4 years. So you might think, why should I buy this game? Is it any different then those other racing games like NFS III, Dethkarz, Viper Racing and ... ? Well sort of yes. Powerslide is a true sci-fi racer. You don't drive with normal cars on 'normal' tracks. Nope. This game offers you more. First, after a nuclear war people began to develop grunt machines with a lot of power. These vehicles are in fact very light buggies and they sort of slide over the road (that's probably why they call it Powerslide :)).    Powerslide offers 4 different game types. Single Race, Championship, Time Trial and Handicap. In the single racer mode, you first choose your difficulty level. Your AI competitors will react differently in coherence with the difficulty level that you have chosen. This means that if its level is set to high (expert, advanced) your other opponents will react very smart and it keeps the game very challenging. Championship mode is a lot different then single race. Here there are 4 levels of championships. Each level is made up of a pre-defined number of tracks and group of opponents. The most significant and most different aspect in this mode is that you can win a championship by accumulating more points than your opponents. Right, this means that you don't have to win every race ... you just have to get more points than your other opponents. Of course more tracks are unlocked (then you can play them in Single race mode) after you have won the Novice and Advanced championships. Oh yes, for the really challenging players out there, you can also try out the 'Insane Challenge' which is very, very insane :) It will keep you busy for .... a very long time. Then we have the Time Trial mode. A race mode that really explains itself right? :) Well, for those newbies I better explain it a bit. The Time Trial mode will let you practice on a track without those nasty AI opponents. In this mode, you can really figure out how to nail some corners because some are really hard to pass at a good speed. The last type, Handicap (now don't you laugh now) mode is nothing really new but for some racers it is a good way to know how fast you really are on a certain track. You can opt to give the rest of your opponents a head start with a maximum of 9 seconds. Next Page Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. 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