Monster 4x4: Stunt Racer

Slot car racing is no longer child’s play! Go ballistic on 20 unreal tracks in a fantasy penthouse apartment setting. Feel the thrill of super-speed lane changes through 360-degree loops and crazy twists and turns!
The tracks are tricky and could be your friend or foe. Race smart and grab extra juice for a boost or blasting power. Blink an eye and a booby trap can send you flying.

In Need for Speed: High Stakes, create the car of your dreams and enter the ultimate challenge. Race in duels against your opponents for pink slips, pushing your car and yourself to the limit. Win the prize money to customize your dream machine and even earn exclusive supercars. The consequences of High Stakes racing are real - lose the race, lose your car.

Now we have the sequel, and it's not at all nice, either. The immediate attraction to Jet Moto 2 lies in the variety of tracks offered. The original stuck mostly to a safe compilation of sand, sea, and snow-based courses, which is fine, but didn't give much room for creativity. And while its follow-up does feature its fair share of deserts and mountainsides, it does so with extreme and creative touches: A remote desert location leads up the side of a lava-spewing volcano, and the lava really does hurt. The level Aftershock takes you from a wreckage-filled ocean into the remains of a toxic, quake-ridden Los Angeles. And Rollercide leads you along the tracks of a demented carnival's roller coaster. By far the most insane of this berserk cocktail is Nebulous, the demonically difficult finale that guides you through the heavens and into... well, you'll see. These bizarre levels take the Jet Moto series yet another step away from the traditional racer and are rescued from the threat of "gimmickiness" by the perverse and detailed humor that SingleTrac so deftly displayed in its awesome Twisted Metal series.

Kinetica illustrates the point that you need more than speed and flashy graphics to make a good high-speed racing game. Sure, the racing here is fast, but design issues quickly turn it into a wreck of a title.
Like the Wipeout and Extreme G games, Kinetica features futuristic car designs, a bumping techno soundtrack, and racetracks that defy the laws of physics and logic. In the world of Kinetica, you don't merely race in cars, you become a car. You race wearing one of several special suits that feature souped-up wheels and engines, and choose from a variety of drivers. Each combination of suit and driver performs differently and withstands varying amounts of damage. In order to finish in a decent place, your racer must locate power-ups and perform stunts in the air and on the ground. Successfully completing a stunt will increase your speed boosts. It's just as important for you to learn the many alternate routes each track offers. Every other racer is out to get you and will try to smash or disable you in a variety of ways.

Once racing begins, Kinetica crashes and burns. The racing is blindingly fast, which makes it very hard to concentrate on performing the trickier stunts. Often you can't see far into the distance, which leads to frequent crashes into walls and other obstacles. You can easily fall completely off a track because of the overly frantic action. The awkward track design and the number of challenges you face each moment severely limits the fun factor for players. The game also experiences some occasionally drastic slowdowns when more than two racers are onscreen at once. Kinetica's original gameplay ideas should have stayed in the shop for more fine tuning.