European Street Racing

European Street Racing is a new fully 3D racing simulator developed by Xider Games and has been released on September 21st, 2007. You can test your driving skills with some of the best real life racing models out there, and take a ride on the streets of Europe without moving an inch from the comfort of your gaming rig. Instead of virtual cities, you’ll get to see Moscow, Warsaw, London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Hamburg in their street splendor. I find this change refreshing as a right step in the direction of virtual tourism.

The game prompts you to create a profile and buy a street car on your 30000$ budget. Off to the garage, you’ll be able to buy more starting equipment and you’ll return here again and again each time you taste sweet victory. It’s time to enjoy the spoils and upgrade your car. Every time you win a race, cash will be gained, which will undoubtedly go into new engines, better steering gear, booster oil and more. In the garage you can get a paint job at any time, so there shouldn’t be a problem with the starting color of your car. I like the way developers created an intuitive interface to vehicle tweaking. You can notice the effect of your next engine upgrade with just one click. Other racing games display complex customization features when it comes to tweaking your car for better acceleration over maximum speed, or steering versus suspension. European Street Racing features a simple system, adding to the casual factor, so you just get in and play right away, arcade style. Sixteen models await as you’ll eventually unlock them all by having enough money to buy them. Since you can sell your car at any given time and start upgrading a new one, there isn’t any money lost in the process.

Although your car is pretty resilient to shocks, unlike the NPC cars will burst into a thousand pieces even on the slightest touch, you might want to avoid hitting walls. The cosmetic change in your car in obvious during a race, as you window glass will crack; the top will come off, along with the front and back parts. It’s still not enough to slow you down as I haven’t seen any major performance changes in my car, even after kissing a wall.

Opponents aren’t that impressive in the normal mode and will occasionally bump into street cars that aren’t competing, out of sheer stupidity. Yes, we do have bystanders that populate the roads on European Street Racing, which sometimes start hilarious events. Picture this for example. I was just starting to enjoy the game as the first race features a quick ride in the streets of London. European Street Racing tried to recreate the ambience or real European capitals instead of fictional cities with strange architecture. The race started and I was trying my best to keep up the pace with the other five speed balls when … I noticed everyone was driving on the right side. Sure, nothing unusual about this, until I realized cars usually drive on the left side of the road in England and my bad habit of driving on the right only caused massive crashes with neutral cars. Damn, it’s going to be harder than I expected, I thought. But it all went fine afterwards, since opponents shared my confusion just the same.

Once you qualified for the next race, the track you just completed will be unlocked for the Ghost Race mode. It would have been great to drive against yourself and observe your previous moves to correct any mistakes. The Ghost Mode is not an improved spectator mode where you race against yourself; instead, it lets you solo race the track to fix any shortcomings. If that last curve was giving you a hard time, you can now adjust your speed in advance and see how much of a difference it makes altogether. A standard feature in most racing games, this addition will help you master the track in no time, being able to think about a perfect theory race and how each turn should be, and then translating it into practice.

I really enjoyed the cool music in European Street Racing, both exhilarating and purposeful, the right mix to get the blood pumping and you wanting to go faster. The great informational highway waits, once you’ve trained enough. European Street Racing can be played either through LAN or directly on the official server through an internet connection. You can join or host games that support up to six players and race them on any given map.

Shortly before the September 21^st release, there was a series of promotional stunts on Max Power which could get you a spot in the next game. Winners V6NOS and Rebecca got themselves into the game as a nifty car owner and a street racing hottie. You can take a sneak peek and hopefully find then by playing the European Street Racing demo.

 Loading ...

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•