I've been looking for a less serious racing game for some time. Sometimes I don't feel like driving perfectly on an asphalt track. It turned out that I didn't have to look further than the next racing game by the Finnish developer Bugbear Entertainment. They are known for the Flatout series, which is known for destruction derby style racing, destructible cars and environment and crazy car sports where you fling your driver e.g. as high as you can.
And now they are back with Next Car Game! Currently it's on Steam Early Access. Right now you get access to a few racing tracks (gravel, mud, asphalt, a track shaped like "8") and some derby tracks where the goal is to be the last car standing. You get three different cars: an American muscle car, an American sedan, and a small European hatchback. At the moment you can tune them without any restrictions, meaning you don't have to spend any in-game money on it. Surely it will change in the full version.
I immediately switched to cockpit view and started racing. The American cars have a lot of power (especially if you change the 300 hp engine to a 500 hp one) and mass, but the handling isn't as good as with the European car. Even with the better engine the European car only packs about 200 hp, but it has more gears, it's lighter, and it's easier to drift through the corners. I liked it more than the two others. Although I always ended up off the track and finished almost last, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately multiplayer hasn't been implemented yet. Wobbly and Taz also have the game, and I can imagine having fun in this different kind of racing game.
I know you like your cockpit view Al, but this might worry you. I read on the forum some guys are unhappy because the have to change view from cockpit because the bonnet is flapping around blocking all view
Yeah, that is a real problem and I happened to read the same posts. Someone had a good suggestion of being able to upgrade your bonnet so that it's tightly in place or even taken out completely.
I've had a few races where the bonnet obstructed half of the windscreen. I had to drive mostly from memory, but on downhill I could see at least a bit ahead. In demolition derby the A-pillar bent and was right in the middle of the view. :P
I was shocked to see no new posts on the driving sub-forums today. But fear not, Finns have come to the rescue! When I stopped playing a game on Steam, I noticed that a game was auto-updating itself. And that was Next Car Game! I immediately went in to check what it was about. After all, it was a 2 GB update.
First the biggest surprise and let-down: there's multiplayer BUT it's LAN only. Unless someone can find a few cheap LAN cables that are thousands of kilometres long, there isn't a way for us to play multiplayer at the moment.
Another thing everyone will notice is a new car: another American muscle car. They have also added some new tuning options and removed at least racing tyres. I don't think the upgrades had explanations with them before, but now they do.
It's clear what I'll be playing tomorrow. The developers also said that they'd do some major updates with the engine. I'm not sure what was it supposed to affect, though.
I just played NCC. I happened to check the controls and it looks like you can use the gear stick now! Clutch can't be used, but there's no way I'm changing gears without pushing down the clutch, so I'm using the clutch pedal even if it doesn't do anything at the moment.
It looks like something has been done with the engine. I had a lot of trouble staying on the track, even when I went for the small European car with the second smallest engine (about 200 hp). Before the update I was just going sideways on the corners like a rally driver. I'll have to adjust my driving style.
It seems that Next Car Game will be getting an update next week. It will contain a new European coupe (looks more like an American muscle car to me)... and online multiplayer! It's pretty much guaranteed to not work properly at first, but it's going to be a lot of fun. I just hope the handling will be better than after the last update.
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