Download Motorhead (Windows)

US readers will undoubtedly not have heard of this title yet (in fact, they've probably already skipped past the review), but I dare say many European gamers are quite familiar with this racing gem from the people who brought us the brilliant pinball titles in the early nineties, Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies, Digital Illusions. Motorhead is a furiously fast action racer with a futuristic Blade Runner-esque setting, that's indisputable biggest asset is the gorgeous and smooth 3D graphics it renders. Obviously, you'll need a 3D accelerator to make the most of them, but as you hear all the time these days, the improvements are more than worth it.

First, the game

Like most arcade racers, there's not much of a premise or storyline to Motorhead. You're racing to be the whopping great unbeatable champion of all-time. Due to some dated convention that's still present in today's racing games, the designers felt it necessary to restrict you from using all the tracks and cars from installation, and instead you only earn the rights to these as you advance through the divisions. This is obviously most annoying for multiplayer, when completing the single-player mode shouldn't be a condition of how many tracks are available to you - this was the case with Moto Racer, for example, but fortunately isn't for this game. Still, in terms of single-player mode, it gives some overall incentive to keep playing (and improving), especially working on earlier tracks first, then moving on to the later ones.

You begin the game with the choice of three cars, each varying in levels of speed, acceleration and grip. You can also race on two of the total eight tracks - "Goldbridge" and "Redrock." These tracks certainly don't start out easy, and learning every single nook and cranny of them is essential for good overall race and lap times. I've been playing the game solidly for several weeks, and I can still end up coming in 30 seconds after some of the expert racers online have already crossed the finish line on many of the tracks. There's actually an "official" high score area on DI's Motorhead site which tabulates people's scores when they submit race recordings, so it's already become very competitive.

Continuing the arcade racer trend, realism is not too high a priority. Your car sustains literally no damage, no matter what elements its subjected to, and bouncing off walls at some 350km/h, and yet driving on as if a bug just hit your windshield, is not unusual. This is not to say that a high level of skill isn't required to get around the track in the fastest time. Keeping a grip on the road is quite a difficult thing to do, requiring precision control of your joystick/steering wheel, and managing your speed on turns and bumps.

Vrroooom

As long as your hardware is up to the challenge (I'd estimate at least a P200MMX with Voodoo1 or similar 3D accelerator), Motorhead will get even the toughest of gamer's hearts pounding with the speeds that it portrays. This is the car equivalent of Moto Racer for breakneck speeds in realistic-looking closed and confined urban settings. Careering through tunnels, making ninety-degree turns at street corners, passing buildings and billboards, all in the blink of an eye leaves you sometimes shaking after a race.

Where graphics are concerned, Motorhead is almost indescribable. Without a doubt, this software could sit in today's bulking 4-way linked arcade car machines, and people would pump their quarters into them with the satisfying feeling of money well spent (as much as you can feel arcade games are good value for money, that is). Yeah, I've got a weakness for the bleak and darkened visual style of a futuristic city, but it's definitely a whole lot more than that. I thought Screamer 2 had terrific effects for a PC racer, but Motorhead is visually to that game what Unreal is to the first Quake. The vibrant use of colors and lighting in the backdrops and scenery, the awesome reflections that gleam off your chrome-plated cars, and some excellent glare effects from street lamps, car headlights etc make the game a joy to watch, let alone play.

In addition to standard controls, there's also a few extra features worth mentioning. Players can customize their keys or joystick buttons to control the hand brake (known as the "emergency brake" in the US), which basically applies brakes to the back tires only, helping you reduce speed but still maintain better handling of the car. There's also an 'instant reverse view' key, so you can keep a check on what's going on behind you, especially useful for blocking someone attempting to overtake (insert evil laugh). A neat gimmick also is the option to use your car horn - whereas this does little else but make a sound effect in single-player, for multi it really is quite fun blowing your horn at a car in your way knowing that your opponent is hearing it on the other end. There's a large range of customizable horns to choose from too, as well as the ability to create your own .wav as a honker.

Additional single-player options includes the ability to play on any of the tracks in Time Attack mode, Ghost mode (compete against cars from a previously recorded race), as well as play all 8 tracks in reverse.

Of the eight tracks, I thoroughly enjoy racing on six of them (the other two, NolbyHills and NeoCity, I just don't have the patience to get the hang of!), but all are certainly of the highest quality. They look fantastic, as I've mentioned, and the layout is varied and imaginative on each. One of my favorites, Ruhrstadt, is a real blast to race through - speeding down what looks like a city center's main street, roadsigns suddenly indicate a sharp left, and you end up on an entrance ramp into a parking lot. After smashing through the barrier and negotiating through the pillar supports, you swerve around some tight turns into an industrial-looking area, and then can even take a hidden shortcut to avoid a long spiral road if you can find it. This is just an example of one of the tracks, anyway; some are more conventional, but they're all fun and will take quite a while to master.

One of the other things that's impressive about the in-game engine environment is how many items on the roadside are full 3D objects that you can interact with (ie. smash into). Traffic cones, signposts, barriers etc can all be driven into and flung around the course - it's not unusual to end a race and have the track completely littered with debris.

Multiplayer

Motorhead's multiplayer implementation is probably the best yet I've seen in a race game. Coded much like Quake 2, the most playable way of competing online is to log on to a dedicated server (the server software is available for free download, and doesn't even require the original game to run, so game services can run servers without owning the game). Up to 12 players can join the server, and through an easy command interface similar to IRC, they can alter the tracks, game mode, laps etc and of course, chat with other players in the lobby prior to and after races. The race begins when all players have checked in "ready". The system is unfortunately open to abuse in some ways, depending on what settings have been configured on the server side - for example, a race can't begin until everyone's changed their status to ready, so a particularly malicious bast--, uh person, could leave his computer idle on the server and prevent anyone from racing. Thankfully, I haven't witnessed this occurring once, and all the gamer's I've encountered have been more than courteous. Obviously, also, the server maintainer could set a flag to begin races once a minimum amount of racers have checked in.

Because the server takes on the load of handling all the data transfers, each individual client's races remain smooth and fast, even with 11 other cars in the game. If I was ever severely lagged, my car would "ghost" out and momentarily pause on the track - this obviously puts me at a disadvantage, but the plus side is my latency doesn't affect any of the other players (unlike, for example, Moto Racer again). Note, I could have ping times in excess of 800ms and it would be rare for my car to actually ghost out.

Right now, I've only been able to find about four permanent servers that are up for the majority of the time and actually have players on them. The explanation for this is probably that since the game is only released in Europe, the multiplayer market is weaker. Once the game hits US store shelves (projected release in September), we're likely to see a lot more dedicated servers showing up, and finding opponents shouldn't be a problem.

There are, also, the standard supported protocols: IPX, direct TCP/IP, modem and serial connections for those who already have an opponent to play and don't need any matchmaker help. And admirably, you're able to install a "multiplayer spawn" version from the game CD onto an unlimited amount of other machines, so you don't have to worry about having to purchase more copies just to link play (note, you can't play on a dedicated Internet server with the spawn, though).

Conclusion

It's tough to find fault with Motorhead other than the rather unavoidable fact that every arcade racing game has to face up to: it is just a standard 'shallow' racing game. There's 8 tracks, and some cars that aren't really all that different (the definitively best one - the Serpent - is the only car you'll end up using eventually anyway once you get access to it). What Motorhead lacks in depth though, it certainly more than makes up for in unrivalled graphical achievements, sheer speed factor, and strong multiplayer support. The bottom line is if you're looking for an unbeatably fast, fun and playable arcade car racing game, then you just can't do better than Motorhead. But as usual, be warned, if you don't have the hardware, you're going to be disappointed.

Review By GamesDomain