Open Source Gaming – Week Six – Racing

I was asked today by someone to do an article on Open Source Racing games, seeing as the only one that I’ve covered to date is SuperTuxKart. To me, this is a really good idea and to the racing fans out there, I’m very sorry for not covering them sooner. Today’s article is for you, the racing fans, because how else will we get our need for speed while it’s raining? And because I’ve been harping it so much, I’m not doing to touch SuperTuxKart as requested. So let’s get the petal to the metal and get this race – er, I mean post, started.

VDrift (450 mb)

While huge on a slower connection and still in early stages of development, VDrift is an amazingly complete game. It boasts a wide range of cars and tracks, realistic physics, AI support, and even specialized joystick support for people who want to use the wheel/petal joysticks. On top of that, it has what makes Need For Speed’s older versions so great, a working replay mode as well as ‘anti-lock brakes’ and other features that would be realistic for today’s drivers. While it hasn’t been fully been completed and there have been reports of bugs with it, it works for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh, even FreeBSD if you look hard enough. Despite the fact that last year was the last year, it is still actively developed and a new release should be due sometime this year.

TORCS (130 mb)

TORCS is short for The Open Racing Car Simulator and much like VDrift, is very complete. It has several tracks, cars, as well as a featured AI as well. Unfortunately, the AI requires work to compile it yourself, and it does show signs of it being still actively being developed, though very slowly. Both games though are great fun for how far along they’ve gotten though. I will be honest though and let you know that TORCS is less complete then VDrift is, so if you want a complete game to play, VDrift should be the one you decide to play. TORCS works on Linux, Windows, and Macintosh.

Armagetron Advanced (3 mb)

Unlike the previous two games, Armagetron Advanced is a throw-back to Tron‘s lightcycle scene where, if you haven’t seen the movie, is when the main character goes and faces off against AIs in a motorcycle that leaves a trail behind it. The point was to eliminate your opponent by cutting him off and letting him run into your wall. As easy as this might sound… it’s really much more complex then you might think. I’ve gone ten rounds against the tricky AI and have had one heck of a hard time to try and win. Perhaps the ultimate irony came when I noticed the names of the AI, which are named after the parts of Microsoft Office. No doubt the developer(s) of Aramagetron use OpenOffice.org or something else.

Links to older Open Source Gaming articles
Week One – First Person Shooters
Week Two – Simulation
Week Three – Remakes of Classics
Week Four – Strategy Games
Week Five – Emulation