While they're still patching, some difficulty tweaks would be nice. Medium on many levels is far too easy and Hard is pretty much impossible on some of the same maps. Either that or fix the lag issues. I'm hoping the new dedicated server will help. Science fiction needs a decent mission oriented multiplayer game with a little thought or strategy involved. Deathmatch does nothing for me at all.

Another map would be nice. I'm surprised that none of the mp mapmakers for either Lucas Arts or the assorted mods to other games never made a map for the opening scene for the first movie made. The stormtroopers are boarding the ship and the crew has to hold them off long enough as the person who has to record the message dodges areas where the storm troopers are and then sends the droids off in the pod. Then again, maybe someone did make this map and it sucked so bad that they didn't release it.

I heard a t some point that ID got some of the RTCW mapmakers to work on DOOM3. Was this true ? If so, it's too bad they weren't allowed to make any mission based multiplayer maps. I played DOOM3 mp for about 2 minutes and got bored pretty quickly.

What I never understood is why they never added an extra sim mode for CMR. The physics are a total joke as it is and they are losing the sim fans money to other games. I guess I can understand pandering to the console crowd but it seems like they could be picking up some extra cash for not much extra work as well as delivering a much better product and much more respect from the community.

RBR looks great from the demo. I wish they would release it in the U.S.

People looking for something in between should check out XPand Rally. The final version in simulation mode is great and the game is better than I thought it would be. I think it was a glitch which prevented the real sim mode from taking effect for some people in the demo.

Are there any other arcade modes than Zombie Headshot Apocalypse or Riot ?

I'm seeing more and more games which either aren't released in the U.S. or are released long after they are available overseas. I've been hearing quite a bit about problems finding a reasonable publishing deal here. In the case of this game it might not be so surprising although I did get a kick out of the arcade modes in the demo.

Does that date include the U.S. ? I heard that they, like many other racing game makers were having a very hard time finding a decent publishing deal in the U.S. You still can't even get Richard Burns Rally or XPand Rally in the U.S. Ratbag even canceled the almost complete Powerslide Slipstream because of their problems finding a reasonable publishing deal.

I reinstalled the old drivers which came with the card. Now whenever I start any game it freezes up after about 5 seconds of normal play. The off switch on the front of the computer won't even work when it does this although reset does. I can't alt-tab or cnrl-alt-del out of it either. They really managed to mess this up royally. I'd think twice before installing this version.

Windows reinstall disk, here I come.

I have a 9600xt just like the first poster who also suddenly developed crashing problems.

Does ATI post their older driver versions anywhere ?

This comment was edited on Oct 16, 05:05.

It blue screened both times that I tried to install it.
It gave a debug code: USB_driver. Huh ? It gets even better. Now windows freezes up right at the end of disk checking. It also now checks drive D before drive C for some reason. Time to reinstall Windows now. Brilliant move ATI ...

The demo version.

I like it. I'm getting much better at it. I'm a little surprised that they picked such a narrow unforgiving track for people to learn on and test out. I can picture a large portion of the people who try out the demo getting frustrated and dumping it. They also need to give much better indication of which way to turn at several intersections. Your navigator calls out so many turns at once that you often can't tell which one he is talking about.

Every time I try to Exit To Main Menu, it makes me sit through an endless promo which can't be skipped through and then exits back to Windows.

The physics are great. However,if you don't have a good controller like a wheel hooked up, it can be hard to control. Keyboard drivers would have a very hard if not impossible time with this.

A little practice will probably go a long way. This one looks like it is worth the effort.

The CMR2005 demo was so cheesy that I deleted it after the first minute. I was wondering if they had gotten any better with their physics but it seems like they got to be even more of a joke.

Someone looking for a decent halfway point between the two might want to check out the latest SP demo for XPand Rally now that they seem to have ironed some of the bugs out. Make sure that you get it running in Sim mode rather than the default Arcade mode. If you try the MP demo, setting it to Sim in your profile doesn't do squat. The editing tools for it also look amazing. It does use that obnoxious StarForce malware though.

One of the main things that I would change is that on maps that have extra goals (like destroying the bunker or destroying the escaping ships etc),there needs to be more of a reason to accomplish them. It seems like you are better off ignoring them and just work on wiping out the enemy and then you'd be able to do whatever you want. Am I missing something here ?

This game is much better than I expected after hearing it slammed by people here. I get the impression that half of the people who slammed it never even played it and just automatically slam anything that also happens to come out on a console. I don't like consoles either but that doesns't automatically make the pc version suck.

There is a screen that lets you adjust AI skill levels. Keep looking.

You can also adjust the number of AI players but you have to start a LAN game with yourself to do that.

The air vehicle controls could use some work but so could the helicopters in BF. I remember that at first I couldn't fly the planes in it either worth squat but got pretty good with a little practice. Maybe that will help here too.

Edited: Apparently you can get stuck in arcade mode even if it claims that you are in sim mode. After a fair amount of messing around , one time it just started behaving much more like a sim. There is hope for this game.


I really wanted a decent game with a good track editor. It looks like I have to keep looking. I won't be buying this.

It does look nice though.

This comment was edited on Aug 29, 04:03.

I wish more companies would adopt the Ratbag rule that the AI cars have to follow the same rules and physics as the player car. Also none of this crud where the AI cars can suddenly triple their speed and turn on a dime if they get more than a little behind. At least I rarely see AI cars that can't be budged an inch from their course even by a freight train which used to be pretty common.

Ratbag has a Dukes of Hazard game coming out in a month or so. Not something I expected. I'd hesitate if anyone else tried it but I'll check this one out. Too bad it's only for consoles.

IGN.com has(had?)some great looking video clips of Powerslide Slipstream. Ratbag has been trying to find a backer for Powerslide Slipstream for a while now. They were/are holding out for a good enough offer. I think that they wanted to self publish it at one point. Maybe this is the big title that they are ramping up for. I'm not sure why they won't announce it until March 2005 though. Maybe it is some movie related instead. I also heard that they've had some division working on action games for years which has been working on something but has yet to put anything on the shelves. Maybe the big game won't even be racing related.

This comment was edited on Aug 20, 02:07.

Ratbag has never received as much attention as they deserve. They have been putting out what I think are many of the best racing games on the market over the years at very low prices. It will be interssting to see what they do with the gigantic amount of cash that they've been given(editing tools please!).

I do however wish that they would release some needed patches for a few of their previous games.

This comment was edited on Aug 19, 12:15.

Other videos and screenshots that I've seen show mainly cross country/rally/road tracks but with lots of jumps,obstacles and stuff to crash through. No worries about oval tracks. They said they might have an oval dirt track. There are plenty of other tracks as well from what I've seen.

This game should be great. I love over-the-top racing scenarios but I won't play a racing game unless it has serious simlike physics. This limits the options quite a bit. I don't like oval tracks at all unless they are sliding around on dirt.

This bunch put out what I think is the best rally racing game there is(Rally Trophy) they also put out a decent cheapo game called Tough Trucks.

It's too bad that mainly dirt-sim company Ratbag has put Powerslide Slipstream on hold. That game looked great. I'm not sure what to think of their new project , which looks very arcade-like in the videos, a Dukes Of Hazard game of all things. Their first game, Powerslide, still stands up as one of the best combinations of serious sim physics in somehwat arcade style environments. Their truck game Leadfoot is also fun.

This comment was edited on Aug 17, 03:09.

Is there anyone out there who didn't return or ditch the game after trying the first mission ? From everyone that I've heard from, the out-of-car controls are almost entirely unusable and the added in-car controls make it nearly impossible to use them while doing much of anything else. This combined with the inability to customize controls(only heard from PS2 players, will XBOX let people do this?) made this game hopeless.

The glitchy AI, gun focused quick chases and many other factors didn't help. Atari screws everything up yet again.

The page would only work after I switched from Netscape to IE.

The problem now is that the map wont show up no matter what directory I install to. I keep getting a message from the console about not being able to find the map on the server whenever I type

map cz_retaliation

I had the same problem with that Swamp map.

After installing from CD, I clicked Yes to let Steam reshuffle or optimize for steam. Maybe that's what's messing things up. Has anyone gotten this to work ?

Trymedia has almost never released any of their own patches as far as I can tell. They claim they will but don't deliver from what I and everyone that I've talked to have seen .I made the mistake of going through them.

That other poster was right about mods also not working with the Trymedia version.

This comment was edited on Jul 11, 05:12.

Remember that Trymedia modifies the exe and that no patches will work with their version. Their version also tends to be incompatible with the CD version if you try to play online.