As a new recruit to the stunt-driving team, the player has to prove his worth by racing with progressively more difficult computer characters. Driving controls are digital, normally through ... Read allAs a new recruit to the stunt-driving team, the player has to prove his worth by racing with progressively more difficult computer characters. Driving controls are digital, normally through the keyboard. First-person, third-person overhead, and helicopter views are provided.As a new recruit to the stunt-driving team, the player has to prove his worth by racing with progressively more difficult computer characters. Driving controls are digital, normally through the keyboard. First-person, third-person overhead, and helicopter views are provided.
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- TriviaIn early versions of the game the tunnel roofs aren't solid. In later versions it is possible to land on the tunnel roof and pass the computer car in the tunnel.
This was a game that i was searching for literally more than a decade, as i remember its name (more or less) but still didnt find it. Just search for a game called Stunts on Google and tell me what you find without telling me countless of real people doing... well, stunts... or sex with their cars after countless of jumps.
But anyway, i played it in the past more or less, and if my memory isnt flawed, this may been one of my first games i ever played in my life alongside Crash Team Racing, Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt and Need For Speed 3. What game was first? Well, who knows, i though about that for years but i dont care anymore. It was one of those and thats what matters. But my point is, while it may been one of my first games, and you think i would overrate this game to death, the surprising truth is that this may as well been an unnostalgic review, because like i said before it was a so long time i played the game and most of my memories were erased, so this is a relatively fresh start for me. How i found it? Well, while i started to get interesting in racing games and retro games in general, i started to find the appeal in the aesthetics of some old DOS games. Doom was one of those and i find it to be a damn great game, even to this day (one day may talk about this game), but even Doom imo couldnt hold a candle to Stunts, aka 4D Sports Driving. What does this game to be so good that surprass imo the grandaddy of first person shooters? Well, to get started, the early 90s was still the 2d era of videogames, and 3d games were mostly relegated to expensive arcade powerhouses. Consoles and even powerful PCs at the time were almost uncapable of running triangles or any kind of deformed geometry without burning like my pizza in the oven... dont tell anyone about that. Im not saying they didnt exist, is just that they were so rare, and in consoles they depend mostly on additional resources like the super fx chip which increased the price of the game and that honestly isnt as impressive as seeing the game running on vanilla hardware. The thing is, i never heard anyone praising Stunts for being basically one of the first true 3d racing games ever made... available for a consumer right out from the box, without also using additional hardware that supports the 3d graphics or any kind of fake 3d, graphics accelerator or anything like that. This is honestly huge for 1990. The SNES which was arguably the most powerful console of that time barely run something like Top Gear in native hardware and that wasnt even 3d. I know that PCs were generally more powerful, but still the optimization wasnt quite yet in that time and you would probably find late 90s PC games that look like trash compared to mid 90s console games or early 2000 PC games thst look like trash compared to late 90s console games and so on until 2004 or 2005 more or less. The graphics in Stunts nowadays may seen primitive, but i think the use of colour in menus and ingame for some things like the cockpit view really makes the game really pleasant in terms of aesthetic for my eyes, so for me at least it still looks nice, and i made a bunch of widescreen like pictures that proves how beautiful even some old games can look and if you are interested you could find it easily with a single search. Obviously from a technical perspective while it was really impressive for its time, nowadays it just looks like textureless 3d forms, with zero shading but well, if you have at least some interest for the past of videogames, dont let things like that blind your mind, and honestly, even without counting how old this game is and how some dated things or flaws it can have for modern standards, this is still a great racing game, one of my favorite ones in fact, and arguably one of the MS DOS games that age the best.
For starters, the handling of the car strikes a great balance between arcadey and realistic. I dont tend to enjoy racing games where you dont feel under absolute control, especially the ones that demand a lot from the player but still have some minor nitpicky that doesnt make them 100% realistic and breaks my inmersion like a toilet. I can enjoy realistic games dont get me wrong, but they have to be so perfect in that regard and also somehow still be fun, because zero fun is the thing i want the least in a videogame. Stunts doesnt give complete control over your car, in fact there is a simulated understeer and oversteering and different levels of grip depending on the car or terrain, but is not exaggerated so you still feel in control. If you know how to turn in this game, cars feel very tight. I think it can be confusing at first, because it seems that each car has an speed limit to when they spin out after turning but if you test the different cars and find that speed value you could drive great in this game. This game was also before analog sticks, so everything you had is a keyboard and the fact that it plays so well is incredible.
But of course this game isnt just driving in roads like a real racing game (which i think even in that succeds) but also there is many types of obstacles and crazy stunts like jumps, loops, corscrews, highways, slaloms, etc. This makes the game so exciting and somehow even more fast and adrenalinic than even modern racing games, while still feeling real enough for the time at least (ignore the lack of gravity while doing a loop). Racing alone was never so fun, but this game manages to do this, by turning the track into an obstacle course....or a damn maze. There is an IA mode as well where you could race against 6 opponents included what it seems to be the Glass Joe of racing games. Did i also mention 11 real life cars? Thats honestly a record (most racing games before only had at most 3 cars).
Of course its not the first racing game to have racing with obstacles, this game is the inspiration for a few other racing games in the past but i think this one succeds even more for their realism, way better controls and... hear me out: a replay camera and a track editor. DAMN, this game was so ahead of its time, and the fun fact is that this track editor is still very comfortable to use. Of course you can just download a program like Bliss to create your own tracks, and i actually recommend creating tracks in external programs because the low resolution of the game means you cant see the entire track and it can be a bit awkard to navigate, plus you can do even more things by tricking the game engine which they would be harder or practically impossible in the normal game. But the single fact that this track editor is very accessible even for people who is used to modern games deserves an achievement on its own.
And of course the soundtrack is iconic, fantastic, just perfect, MIDI as its purest form and perfected in its simplicity.
Racing satisfying as hell, varied, packed with basically infinite content, impressive visuals and a hell lot of community support for this game: More tracks, cars, online competitions in a singleplayer, this game has everything to be perfect right? Well.... almost...
Lets talk about the issues shall we? Starting with the physics. Like i said before i love them, the car feels weighty but isnt like a truck, the problem is that while is also weighty, the car itself seems that its made from paper. Something i have to really praise about this game is how a crash at high speed could make the race over, which even a lot of "Real Driving Simulation" games (looking exactly at you) lack. However, this system is very inconsistent. Sometimes the car resist a few impacts at low speed, but not a single scratch from the side when you are going just a bit fast, and other times even an impact at 1mph can destroy it depending on the object. For some reason the devs put the damn finish line as the strongest object in the game so even if you literally touch it your car gets destroyed instantly. Which you may say: "You have to be bad on purpose". And i say... maybe, if it werent for one time that i lose a race of almost a half hour just for going way too fast after a sharp turn that led me to the finish line, i oversteer accidentally and i crash into the finish line instead of going through it.... Almost half hour of progress was LOST. Of course i have to mention the glitches. While its satisfying to execute some of them to minimize your lap times and going to insane speeds, sometimes they can work against you and when you hit anything at a strange angle your car would literally fly up to outer space. And finally the last flaw and i think is the most serious one.... Remember that i mention before online competitions in a singleplayer? Well, thats because there is ZERO multiplayer. Nothing... What?! Seriously?! Racing games had multiplayer even in the early 80s! I know this is true 3d but at least a LAN connection could have worked just fine, im not even asking for split screen or direct IP, just a basic LAN option for 2 players!
But overall... yeah, this game is amazing. Possible the oldest game i ever played that still holds up and i personally replay constantly. Its so rare to find old games, especially old 3d games and first starters in their genre that nail it on the first or second try, but Stunts does basically that. Its a bit buggy but yet a very satisfying and complete experience. And im also happy that this has a community supporting it, and it didnt sold very well i think. Its also abandonware, so just search for Zakstunts and download it, dont fear about the rules of "illegally downloading a copyrighted game" (which honestly im a bit sick of those people anyway).
Hope you enjoy the review, the coffee, and i see you next time.
- sebastianali123
- Oct 10, 2023
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