Overview
If you want a change of paste in racing, you have to try this game. I have been down in Florida where R/C racing is very big. They have a track in Ocala Florida where I saw them race both on a dirt track and a Oval track. To own a real R/C car to be competitive would cost over $1000 or more along with all the parts and controllers. This game becomes a very good substitute for the real thing although you are racing through fictitious tracks that real R/C racing would probably not do. The game is similar to most racing games where it has a single races, championship racing, and multiplayer capability. The game has an arcade mode and a simulation mode. There are also weapons or what they call pickups with the little cars to take out your opponents. There are 9 default cars and 8 tracks that can be accessed on startup of the game. All the player cars are unique and are fun to drive around the different tracks. The bonus cars and other tracks are obtained by winning races, points, or by using cheat codes. The tracks range from racing around someone's yard, in a supermarket, museum, to racing a huge ship at sea. The feel of the R/C car and electric motor sound of the cars are very realistic and work well with a wheel controller. If you can find a actual R/C wheel controller that works with the PC and the game would be and additional realism to the game. There are many other sounds going on all around you while the car is racing, and sometimes have to avoid large obstacles like basketballs, etc. Spinouts of the R/C car are very realistic also as they quickly spin around or flip over. There are several R/C car views that the player can select, right down to a ground level view which you might see if you were inside the R/C car. The R/C cars can go most anywhere on the tracks to get to the end of the race. The AI cars are very competitive and will give you quite a challenge in each race to the finish. This game is allot of fun and will give the player somewhat the feel of an R/C race car.
Installation
The game installed very easy on my system with no problems getting it to run. I am running the game on a 450 MHz Pentium 2, Voodoo 2 3DFX video card, SBLIVE sound card, 64 Meg of RAM, Microsoft Sidewinder FF wheel controller, and displaying the game on a 100" by 100" projection screen. It does require Direct X capability on your computer and if you have a 3D accelerator card is a plus also. I need to set up my SBLIVE card with two more speakers to see if they use the positional sound environment in this game.
There is a Revolt update patch that takes care of a couple bugs in original game and prevents lockups in some computers after running the Revolt executable program. Read the text file below that explains more about the patch.
Starting Revolt Game
The Revolt game starts up with a couple of graphics pages before going to the main menu. The main menu of Revolt allows the player to start a race, show best times for the time trial mode, show progress in the championship and star arena, select the game options, go into a track editor to make your own tracks, and exit from the game. The progress chart of races will indicate how the player is doing in all the championship race series and the stunt arena.
Game Options for Revolt
The Option menus allows the player to select settings for the game, video, audio, controller, a credits menu of who made the game while racing is going on in the background, and a gallery to showing some of the R/C cars.
Race Modes for Revolt
The Revolt game has six modes of racing that the player can choose. They are single race, championship, multiplayer, time trial, practice, and stunt arena. Each event in the championship or the stunt arena modes will unlock either a new R/C car or track to race on.
The Single Race mode allows the player to select the R/C car and the track in which to race on. The other settings are configured within the game settings menu in previous section. The player then races against up to 12 other R/C cars and can race up to 20 laps on some wild and scenic tracks.
The Championship mode allows the player to again select the R/C car and then go into a menu to select which Cup Series to race in. The Cup Series are named Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The Bronze stars out with easier levels and works up to the top Pro Levels in the Platinum series. I have tried the bronze cup series so far and it is not exactly a pushover to get through the series. Some of the races will give you a few retries if you don't finish in a certain position to continue the series. The player should do several single races on the tracks in the series before going to the championship mode to know where to steer the R/C on the tracks and take advantage of the other AI R/C cars.
The Multiplayer mode allows the player to go out and race against live racers. The different modes are IPX, TCP/IP, modem, and serial. I have not done any multiplayer racing at this time to know if there are any problems with it.
The Time Trial mode means what it says. The player picks out the R/C car and track and can go as many time around the track to obtain the fastest time. Each faster time is recorded and the best 10 times of each track can be viewed from Main Revolt menu.
The Stunt Arena mode provides a unique type of event for the R/C cars. The player selects the R/C car to perform the stunts and then goes into the stunt arena. It is not really a track, but something that maybe a skate boarder would like to go around in or like a packman game. There are many short and long ramps to make the R/C car go up and jump over to obtain small gold stars(1 to 20) in mid air. The goal is to obtain all 20 gold stars.
Replays for Revolt
The replay mode in the Revolt game is not as elaborate as some of the other games. The replays can only be seen after each race and cannot be saved for future use. The replays themselves are outstanding, but there are no VCR type controls or car views to select from to see each replay. The replay simply takes you through each race and automatically changes views as it goes along the track.
Force Feedback for Revolt
I have been using the Microsoft Sidewinder FF wheel with the revolt game and it works great with the game. There is no special parameter that needs to be turned on to work as long as the controller is setup in the windows control panel. This game really gives the FF wheel controller a workout. I feel every bump on the tracks, walls, obstacles, bumps of the other cars, and the faster the R/C car goes, the more resistance the wheel has in the turns of the tracks. It is really wild using the FF wheel controller with this game.
Final Words
If you want a change of paste in racing from Nascar 2, Indycar, or SCGT, this unique game is really a blast to race R/C cars around some wild tracks and avoiding all obstacles that come along during the race.. It is not a Simulator game, but it will keep you entertained for hours trying to beat the AI R/C cars for the different championship series. You get tired of one car, there are 16 other cars that you can race on 12 exiting tracks when you can access them all.
