Free Racing Games: Guide to Free Open Source Games, Part 4

The thrill of speeding along at over 100 miles an hour or the danger of crashing into another vehicle traveling at similar speeds is a feeling most of us will hopefully be unable to experience in our daily lives. There is of course one way to live out our white knuckle fantasies, Virtually.

Racing games have evolved tremendously from the first white box blips in Atari's Night Driver to near photo realistic physic simulating games of today. All of the entries in this installment of the Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games share the quest to cross the finish line first.

KidStuff

Racing is the first sport children come in to contact with. Foot racing, Bike races, it seems to come natural. Put two kids together and they simply must find out who is faster. Here are a few games for the kids and the children living inside some of us adults.

SuperTuxKart
This game is an enhanced version of TuxKart which was inspired by the Mariokart series. Featuring colorful mascots from the open source community, SuperTuxKart is a little too easy for most on its lowest difficulty setting. Racing enthusiast can ratchet it up for a good time and a greater sense of speed. SuperTuxKart has the power-ups and weaponry familiar to MarioKart fans as well as an interesting collection of levels. Grab SuperTuxKart binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac are available here.

Slune
Blending a social message and fun can be tough, somehow the French developers behind Slune mange to pull off both nicely. In Slune Tux has been charged with the task of delivering AIDS medication to treatment centers as fast as he can. Linux Mac and BSD downloads are here. Slune for Windows is here.

ExtremeTuxRacer
Building on the ever popular Tux Racer formula, Extreme Tux Racer features new models, maps and GUI elements, but is still a penguin sliding down an icy slope. The goal is to beat a specified time and collect the required number of herrings on the way down. Although this new version is a little less polished, leaving your penguin stuck in a few places it is still a lot of fun. ETR is available for Windows, Linux and Mac here.

Just For Fun

Sadly, while researching for this article, I found one area of open source gaming severely lacking. There are almost no open source Motorcycle Racing games. I include the next two games in their absence.

GlTron
In 1982 Disney introduced us all to computer animation on Film with Tron, (although most of the graphics were hand drawn) One of the most exciting scenes in the movie involved a LightCycle "race". GlTron recreates this gameplay and scenery faithfully. Grab GlTron for Windows, Linux, or Mac here.

Armagetron Advanced
Where GlTron aims for recreating Tron, Armagetron Advanced is all about extending it. Multiplayer with splitscreen, LAN and Internet offering a variety of gametypes. Armagetron Advanced is available for Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac here.

Serious Racing

While all the games above are a blast to play, they lack realism. Physics and Accuracy of vehicles are all important to any true connoisseur car carnage. These games give it their all in that department.

Trigger
Trigger is a rally racing game. Drive from checkpoint to checkpoint and get to the end before time runs out. Don't stray off the track too far or you'll be end over end in no time. Trigger is cross platform, unfortunately the game is downloadable only in source form and you'll have to build it yourself. On a Debian or Ubuntu system you can apt-get or use synaptic to get the binaries. For everyone else a platform independent source download is here.

Vdrift
Vdrift is a relative newcomer to the scene but already has quite a following. Based around the Drift Racing concept that hopped the Pacific from Japan, Vdrift looks good, but in good conscious I can't recommend it too highly. Installation was troublesome on both Windows and Linux, I finally was successful at getting it to run. While racing, I drove right through my opponents. If you enjoy drift style racing, and can look past it's faults, Vdrift is passable. Downloads for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac can be found here.

Ultimate Stunts
In the days of yore, when the C:> prompt was all we had, a game call stunts was released. Ultimate Stunts is an OpenGL remake of the fondly remembered Stunts. The objective is to complete a track littered with loops, jumps and obstacles in the shortest time possible. Included is a nifty editor to create your own tracks. Graphically Ultimate Stunts surpasses it's stunts roots, but not by a whole lot. Downloads for Windows, Linux, Mac and BSD systems are here.

ManiaDrive
A clone of Trackmania, ManiaDrive is a tool of frustration. Courses are typically under 1 minute in length and require expert precision to get through in the allotted time. Physics are brutally realistic, and the tracks are deviously difficult. In spite of, or perhaps because of this high level of challenge, ManiaDrive is still a load of fun. Multiplayer play is available over LAN. Track your stats and ranking on online tracks via Internet. ManiaDrive looks Great, but Sounds even better with a full soundtrack. If you can handle constant failure get ManaiDrive here.

TORCS
T.O,R.C.S is about as serious as you can get. TORCS stands for The Open Racing Car Simulator, with the focus on simulation. Each car and track is a unique driving experience. Personally, I enjoy frustrating myself in a Formula One car on dirt tracks, but I am strange like that. A large community of users over the last 10 years have lovingly recreated their favorite cars and tracks ensuring a large amount of content. Races can be customized in a variety of ways, mixing car types and number of laps or miles. TORCS is a tinkerers dream, documentation for tweaking your car, track creation and creating new robot AI drivers are all available online. Downloads for Windows, Linux, and Mac are here.

I hope you enjoyed this trip around the open source racing world. While these games are not quite up to the quality of Need For Speed Underground, they are still a lot of fun and a worth a download.