Excessive Speed

[h1]I can't believe I get to experience Excessive Speed again! [/h1] Thank you so much [b]Piko Interactive LLC[/b] for acquiring the rights and re-releasing Excessive Speed on Steam and GOG! I played this a lot on the family PC when I was a kid. Later, I tried to install it with my disc on a newer system and I couldn't get the sound working...I kinda gave up on ever playing the game again unless I got a retro 95/98 or low end XP gaming PC, until now! Excessive Speed is a combat racing game from the late nighties with lots of vibrant tracks and an amazing soundtrack. Each track has its own song that plays and there are lots of different powerups scattered across each track. The early tracks have slower cars and early powerups, but the more you progress across the tracks, the more different )and powerful!) powerups and cars you come across. Excessive Speed has lots of different events and a good sense of progression bcause of it. [h2]Compatibility[/h2] Since I couldn't get the game running on a modern system before this Steam (and GOG) release, I wanted to emphasize something first. I played this on three totally different systems so far and it runs flawlessly on all three of them. I'll detail them below and I will touch on gameplay and progression later. System 1 W10: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D/16GB/RX 6900XT and a 1440p166Hz monitor System 2 W10: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T @3.7 GHz/16GB/ RX 570 4GB and a 1080p144Hz monitor System 3 W11: Intel i5-10300h/16GB/RTX 3060 Mobile Now, the game only supports its resolution of 640x480, so setting your drives to 'center' and not to strech the game gives the best image. Go to the graphics settings and disable Synchronization to disable Vsync. I had a max fps of 33 without Vsync but just 20 with Vsync. [h2]GAMEPLAY[/h2] You start off with two cars and two tracks available. You select your car from the menu, but you also select your game mode from the menu. You can select four different modes: [i]Track Fighter[/i], [i]Grand Prix[/i], [i]Championship[/i] and [i]Multiplayer[/i]. [h3]Track Fighter[/h3]: Earn Stars to unlock more tracks. Each of the fourteen tracks has three events available and completing each of them earns you a star. Unlock three stars and you unlock the next track. The available events per track are Race, Time Trial and Dynamite Trial. Race is pretty straight forward, a set amount of laps and opponents, first place gets a star! With Time Trial, you race against a Ghost and your job is to finish ahead of them. Dynamite Trial is a lot like Time Trial, except your health is incredibly low so if you hit a barrier/wall, your car explodes and your race is over! [h3]Grand Prix[/h3] Enter this gamemode to race five random tracks. You will unlock this gamemode after earning a few more stars in Track Fighter. Finish in a higher position to earn more cash. Finish at the top of the leaderboard after five races to unlock a new car! [h3]Championship[/h3] Enter the Championship and race at every track from the first to the last one. Winning is the only way to advance to the next track. You start the Game Mode with two lives. If you win, you advance to the next track and you gain a life. Lose a race and you lose a life. If you run out of lives, it's game over! [h3]Multiplayer[/h3] Haven't tried it, so I can't say anything about it. [h2]Conclusion[/h2] In the end, I am so happy I get to play yhis game again. It runs well on my variety of modern systems, both Windows 10 and 11. However, I do think the standard price of 10 euros is quite steep. I got this on sale for €5,85 @ 40% off, which is still a bit much for such an old game. BUT, I still wanted to show my support for old games being made available (again). Seeing the game run this well on modern system actually makes me want to get the game on GOG too, just to be able to play it on older OS'es... Thanks again to Piko Interactive LLC for bringing this gem of my childhood back to online stores in a functioning state!

Cuando era chica este juego venia de una revista "Billiken Compu" en CD como nombre de "Speed 2021" De mis juegos de carreras favoritos cuanto a personalización (Opciones), Gameplay, OST, Efectos de sonidos que me hicieron memorables y la opción de meter un CD de Música como User Tracks. Cuando quería reinstalarlo de nuevo (El CD rayadisimo) , me vi con que estaba en Steam y no pare de sonreír y de NO CREER QUE ESTA EN STEAM VAMO CARAJO, Volví a mis 6 añitos y jugar esto cuando quiera ♥ Lo que si, todavía esta en resolución 800x600 y no hay un WidescreenFix para modernizarlo a 1920x1080. Ojala estuviese la opción de un Multiplayer Online aunque sea en Coop a pantalla compartida (Hasta a 4). Ojala llegue a mas gente y se siga conservando en Steam, para aquellos en la epoca de Billiken Compu ♥

Ароматная какашычка из детства. Первая игра, которую я честно прошел в конце прошлого века. Сейчас, правда, она играется чересчур по-роглайтовски (случайные и различные по статам противники, бонусы, карты) и скорее представляет из себя вакханалию на дороге, а не гонки. Полная дичь, которая так просто, как раньше, уже не проходится. Сейчас мне было сложно разобраться, что надо сделать, чтобы открыть новые режимы, карты и машины. Выбесила немного. [spoiler]Мне кажется или в тегах действительно указан "автобаттлер"?[/spoiler]

Excessive Speed is an old game and, even in its heyday, wasn't particularly good. As such, I mostly purchased it out of nostalgia. It's a 2D racing game that isn't meant to feel realistic, similarly to something like Micro Machines. You'll race against opponents on a variety of sometimes quite fantastical courses and shoot them with rockets, drop mines and get turbo boosts. Cars will explode in a cartoonish fashion and respawn quickly. Throughout playing the game you'll unlock more courses and cars, and the game will become slightly more complex. AI seems to race a little smarter in later stages and there'll be a greater variety in power ups that appear (though nothing spectacular emerges). To progress you'll need to win races and beat the computer in time trials (including dynamite time trials where your car explodes at the slightest collision). After unlocking every stage you gain access to all stages ridden in reverse making for somewhat of a New Game+. There are quite a lot of tracks and they vary significantly in look (you'll visit a Haunted Town, a Military Base, a Space Station and a Mine). One problem is that this is largely set dressing as the tracks themselves offer very little in terms of new mechanics. Surfaces generally don't impact your car. It contributes to the game lacking depth. Most of it isn't particularly challenging either aside from the final few time trials in the reverse stages where the AI is blatantly cheating. Sound effects and music are atmospheric enough and each track has a unique soundtrack that tends to fit its aesthetic. If you know what you're getting into this is a fun enough game but I would get it on sale.

(I've played for much longer than 20 minutes, Steam doesn't track this game's playtime properly.) Fun, challenging racing once you get a feel for the handling physics, great soundtrack, and wonderfully 90's pre-rendered visuals.

Bought this game as I wanted to re-live some nostalgia I had for this game. The game is quite cute and the isometric style of gameplay is pretty decent and can keep you entertained for a few hours or so. There are some issues here and there with the game though. Playtime doesn't track through Steam properly unless you go out of your way to fix how Steam launches the game. Also, the game forcing your monitor to a specific resolution will mess with a multi-display setup (if you don't have more than 1 monitor then this won't be an issue for you), which also causes any notifications your computer might display to appear extremely big and cover a good portion of the screen. I did have a bunch of fun with the game though. Price is pretty decent too, but if you're hesitant to try it out, wait until it's on sale

EXCESSIVE SPEED (1998) REVIEW: A BEAUTIFUL, BRUTAL BLAST FROM THE PAST Man, Excessive Speed is such a wild time capsule. Released back in 1998, this top-down arcade racer is totally gorgeous, but it will absolutely punish you. A NOD TO THE PRE-RENDERED ERA If you've been playing PC games for a couple of decades, you probably remember this very specific era of graphics. Right before our hardware could handle fully 3D worlds with high details, developers used 2.5D graphics. They would take incredibly detailed, pre-rendered 3D models and turn them into flat 2D sprites. Because the game engine didn't have to render all the 3D physics and lighting effects in real-time, the developers could pack the screen with a crazy amount of detail. The 14 different tracks are vibrant and full of life, ranging from spooky towns to underwater stages complete with swimming dolphins. The cars themselves look like highly detailed little toys. It really is a cool nod to the past, capturing that brief window where pre-rendered art looked way better than the early, blocky real-time 3D games of the time. BRUTALLY HARD The difficulty borders on masochistic. The AI is super aggressive, and the collision physics are incredibly unforgiving. Just a slight bump from another car or clipping the wall at the wrong angle will instantly spin you out, which pretty much ruins your chances of taking first place right then and there. Since your weapons have limited ammo and your nitro doesn't just fill back up on its own, falling behind early is basically game over. You are surviving a barrage of homing missiles, tornadoes, and oil slicks just as much as you are racing. THE CHEAT CODES If the brutal difficulty is driving you crazy and you just want to see the awesome track designs, you can level the playing field with the game's built-in cheat codes. Just type these words while you are sitting on the Main Menu: winrace - Instantly wins the current race allcars - Unlocks all vehicles alltracks - Unlocks all tracks addlife - Restores full health addenergy - Grants full energy addshield - Grants a full shield addturbo - Fills your turbo addmissile - Gives you a full arsenal of missiles addmine - Gives you a full pack of mines winflygame - Activates Fly mode It takes a lot of patience to play today, but for anyone who appreciates the lost art of high-fidelity pre-rendered sprites and tough-as-nails arcade gameplay, it is definitely a uniquely rewarding challenge.