Fans of F-Zero and/or WipeOut should lift up their visors and squint their eyes this way! The 0.1 version of Trackverse has just been released and all you need to know is it’s like both of those aforementioned games but focuses on letting players build and share their own tracks.

While racing games in general need to be something quite special in order to get our attention, there is a way of doing so that means you can get away with the gameplay and look of the game resembling other, bigger titles. After all, what’s more indie than basing a game almost entirely around community driven track creation and sharing? Not much, basically, which is why we’re fully supporting Trackverse.

This takes futuristic racers to a terrain of gaming that they’ve probably never visited before. There are pre-made tracks for you to have a go around, but they’re actually referred to as themes as they are intended to be taken apart and reconfigured by players. So far there are City, Post-Apocalyptic, Cartoon and Sunken City packs for players to play with. Soon there will also be Sci-Fi, Canyon, Industrial and Jungle packs added to the roster and who knows what else even further into the future.

Of course, Trackverse doesn’t look like the best racing game ever but it’s early days and so far it’s an impressive package, considering it’s free to download at the moment. So hop on and get making some tracks already.

You can download this very first alpha release of Trackverse from the official download page.

You can find out more information on Trackverse over on the game’s official website.

Gamepires have announced that their combat racing game, Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage, is now available to pre-order with a discount in anticipation for its upcoming release.

Racing games are alright but you can’t but think how they are spruced up with some guns and explosions, right? All of that shoving and bashing is easily traded for blowing up opponents with gatling guns rocket launchers. If you haven’t guessed already, this is what Combat Carnage is all about – racing and blowing things up, that is.

We shouldn’t need to elaborate on that much more really; you all know the drill with these kinds of things. You start off with a lame car and pathetic weapons, then you win some races and earn some money to spend on better things while your skills generally increase too. Simple fun, that’s all this is.

Well, if you fancy some of that then you should know that you can pre-order Combat Carnage right now, either from Gamefly or if you’re in Europe, Cenega. But wait, you want to try out a demo first, yes? Well, you can grab that right here folks.

Oh, the release date has also been announced! Combat Carnage will be released for PC on May 4th. Apparently it will be available on Origin, GamersGate and Impulse as well as the other “important” digital download services (no idea which ones though).

More information on Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage can be found on the official website,

There is little as satisfying as the screech of tyres that accompanies a well taken corner at the highest possible speed. Maintaining control through a hairpin with the back-end pointing sideways, holding your car right on the point where drift becomes skid, thus exiting in the optimum attitude and at the optimum speed; if a driving game gets this part right then it has done the biggest part of the job. AI, career progression, upgrades and all the rest that is now part and parcel of a driving game is just window dressing, because when you play a driving game you do it to FEEL your way around those courses at speeds you could never hope to replicate on a real road.

Little Racers Street not only deals with this very well indeed, it absolutely nails it.

Within your first few races you will find ways to attack corners that minimise the speed you lose through them. You will delight in overtaking and undertaking the lead cars by dint of superior driving as opposed to just having a better car than them. Or hitting your Nitro at just the right moment, allowing you to blaze right by the other guy who just used up his boost to stay ahead of you. These moments are the ones that make you realise you are in a race.

Driving sims are all well and good, but all too often they turn into procession laps with the occasional rolling roadblock for any halfway decent player. Here, though, this pitfall is avoided. Instead, races take place on tight and short tracks, against AI opponents that range from the also-rans to Lewis Hamilton incarnate. Frequently, they bump into you on the corners, using your momentum to carry them and give them the best exit line. These guys are not shy about going for the win and if that means smashing you into the corner then they will gladly do it.

Such a racing feel is only possible when a game invests time into making the cars control as well as possible. Played from an overhead camera, it would have been quite easy for Milkstone Studios to have missed the ball. But what they have given us is cars that are responsive as well as intuitive to handle. Squeezing the right trigger speeds up, squeezing the left trigger slows down, pressing X turns on the Nitro, whilst a tap on the A button initiates a drift. You can also press Y to sound the horn, but these are all the controls you will need to learn. The skill in Little Racers Street comes from your mastery of your vehicle, even more so than from your knowledge of the course itself. This is doubly true when fighting the elements, as wet and snowy weather both play their part to affect your grip on the track.

When the racing is so enjoyable, it would be a shame if it was bogged down behind an overcomplicated menu system, or weighed down by excruciatingly long load times. Mercifully, the structure of Little Racers Street is such that races load within seconds. Whilst the setting is that of a city, with sections made available for the purposes of racing, most tracks are sufficiently small that loading is barely noticeable at all. Even better, the size of the courses also plays into the hands of keeping the field relatively compact. Whilst early on you will be leaving opponents eating your dust, stepping up into the next class usually means much closer races.

There is more than enough single player game here to justify the mere 80 MSP/$1 entry fee. Even without the inclusion of time trial leaderboards and challenges, one could not feel anything but satisfied with the wealth of content included. However, shortly after release, Milkstone Studios saw fit to update the title to include a traditional multiplayer mode. Admittedly, the servers are not always as full as they could be, but this is still an extremely welcome addition. Even better, whilst the single-player career mode is quite standard fare, progressing through classes with points accrued used to unlock additional and tougher classes, it never feels like too much of a slog. You are generally able to afford a car from the next class long before you feel ready to make the jump.

With a sizeable career mode, a veritable bucket list of challenges, multiplayer, time trial leaderboards and a playability that absolutely screams “ONE MORE GO!” thanks to the almost bite-sized nature of the individual races; it is impossible to avoid recommending this one. Little Racers Street is as polished and accomplished as anything on the XBox Live Indie Games channel and is very worthy of your investment.

You can purchase Little Racers Street on the Xbox Live Marketplace and you can find out more information on the game’s official website.

Domipheus Labs has announced their new racing title Gears of Glory: Apex Ace which is to be released on IndieCity sometime in May.

Gears of Glory is pitched as bringing a little more of a competitive edge to casual racing. In essence, this basically means that the game is easy to pick up for just about anyone willing but rather than just having zip around circuits there are “dynamic challenges, multiplayer, on-the-fly news and real-timeleaderboards” to keep you occupied and hopefully competing.

There should be plenty of content too, what with 24 season tier circuits and achievements to pursue. Let’s not forget that the game also comes with a track creator too, enabled so you can share with friends and compete with them on your creations too.

As you can probably see in the trailer below, Gears of Glory is designed with low spec PCs in mind as well as those with low funds in their banks. It’s not going to blow your mind graphically but if you enjoy pursuing the perfect lines in a competitive racing environment then you should find its gameplay a just serving.

“I am a fan of F1 and ‘sim’ racers – for them throttle control, braking zones and turn in points are some of the main skills one needs to master, and have focused on those points in the gameplay,” said Colin Riley, the sole developer of Domipheus. “You try to get best laps, around circuits with challenging corners. Dynamic boards update your rank on the fly and tell you how far you need to go to rank up again. But, with other people playing, you can be ranked down at any time – and again you will be told how much time you need to find on your lap to climb the boards once more.”

You can find out more information on Gears of Glory: Apex Ace over on its official website.

At first glance, Retro Racing by Mr. Qwak looks like some sort of a classic remake that may provide a few minutes of entertainment; however your opinion will change ever so quickly once you complete that first lap and are filled with the adrenaline that ensues.

Retro Racing has six cars to choose from, each one sporting their own stats for Top Speed, Accelerate, and Tires. After the player has chosen a car that will do the job there are a number of tracks to choose from; however you can’t skip ahead until you have played the track before the next. The rules are standard for a racing title and, of course, the player is simply trying to be the first across the finish line. Along the course there will be small circles that litter various areas that can provide different stat increases or power ups. Some will increase the aforementioned stats of your vehicle; which means that your car will have a higher top speed, accelerate quicker, or handle better for the remainder of the race. There is also a power up that provides a nitro boost that turns your car into a jet powered monster.

Racing around would be too easy, so Mr. Qwak has made some of the tracks with multiple paths that can turn out to be a shortcut, or a dead end. Each time you stray from the main road you are taking a risk, at least until you memorize the levels and can really start to feel like a pro racer. Littering each track is also a number of oil slicks that will cause your little car to spin around and usually lose a few places in the race.

Controlling Retro Racing is great due to the extremely responsive and simple controls. On the left side of the screen there is a left and right arrow that will help steer and then the right side holds the gas arrow. Advanced players will be able to tap the arrows in just the right way as to drift quickly around corners and have a more technical navigation of the track, while newer players will still easily move around the track in a less fancy manner.

Retro Racing doesn’t let down in any way when it comes to the art or music with vibrant colors and simple, but crisp levels and cars. The music manages to keep the mood of a highly intense race game and shouldn’t be able to draw complaints from even the most picky of players. One thing that would make for a great addition would be the ability to link up to other iOS devices and race your friends! Maybe even porting this over to console marketplaces in order to get the game in more hands. I should note here that the game does support local multiplayer for 2 player mode. Players will play from opposite ends of the device and each have their own screen to use and control. This was tested with my girlfriend and I can confirm that there may be nothing more fun than staring into the eyes of your opponent while you blindly cross the finish line in first place – all the while they smash into a wall repeatedly while trying to turn around.

What I enjoyed most about the game was the simplicity it presents itself with, but also the skill that can be used to race in more advanced ways. Retro Racing is the perfect game to keep on your iOS device because it can help fill in the few minutes between your favorite television show, but also fill in the hour long gap at night before you actually fall asleep in bed. The flexibility of Retro Racing is something that isn’t found as often in games these days that tend to cater to one audience or another and I can’t stress enough how good it feels to have a game that doesn’t have to take up so much time while still having the choice to play it for more than ten minutes.

I will eagerly recommend Retro Racing to anyone who is in the market for a versatile game, or something with a true classic feel. There isn’t anything to complain about here because the game does exactly what it sets out to do and that is be fun. Playing Retro Racing is like being a child who just got a new toy car – that new car is almighty and provides so much in terms of fun that you want to bring it with you everywhere.

Do your iOS device the favor and download Retro Racing from the App Store, stop by the official site to show some support for the game and leave a comment about your experiences racing!

Lovers of Tron-like environments and of free games will be very pleased to hear that the student created racer, Nitronic Rush, has been given a beefy update. Yes, beefy!

The third update to this still free and still fantastic racer involves “tweaks to existing levels, a couple bug fixes, 3 new Community levels, a new Stunt Mode level, a new vehicle, and a new Hardcore level which is our remake of the classic Rush 2049 Gauntlet level!”

How do you react to such news in an adequate manner is what you should be contemplating. Leaping out a window, dancing around the office or just a plain old “Yay”? Playing the game might do though…yeah that will do it. Playing it and loving it of course!

From the creator of Qwak comes a new retro racer for your iDevice, it’s called (drum roll) Retro Racing! Oh and look, is that a launch sale I smell? Why yes it is!

According to one user review, Retro Racing is the best top down racer on the App Store. That has to count for something, right? Mr. Qwak, as we have come to know him, would like us to tell you about his game Retro Racing because he is lovely and indie.

There is a list of verbs we need to spout out too, in order to describe the game. Let’s see here…here we go; in Retro Racing you can “skid, slide, spin and drive”. As you rub bonnets and grind tyres with your opponents you’ll be battling it out for a bunch of power ups as well as first place.

You should go and check it out and but it while the sale is still on – 66% off it is, that makes the game a bargain at $0.99 just for another week at a push we’re told. Go on, off you trot to the App Store.

You can find out more information on Retro Racing over on the official website.

The Tokyo-based I-Friqiya have announced that their tactical-action-racing game, Fuel Overdose, will be coming to PSN/SEN and PC this Spring, allowing you to grapple hook your on-wheels opponents out of your way – you so want to do that.

Racing cars around circuits is something I normally avoid at all costs in gaming, there is one exception though and that is when I can use weapons to disrupt and damage my opponents. Fuel Overdose will be joining the ranks of Road Rash and Twisted Metal in that regards, but what else does it offer? You can use a grapple hook to grab your opponents and fling them around? You know I spent half my time in Just Cause 2 doing just that, I’ll take it!

This may not be enough for some of you though, so I-Friqiya have introduced some element of pre-race tactics to the game; resource management for vehicles and weaponry “a super/ultra attack gauge inherited from the versus fighting genre” and auction events than can “bring a decisive edge to win races.” Of course, when you’re actually in the race you’ll have a number of different weapons available to you which can be upgraded and you’ll have to be able to drive well to a certain degree (my weak point).

From this teaser it seems the game will feature some interesting and diverse tracks and quite a lot of explosions. Let’s not miss that part when the guy flings the car around a corner using the grapple hook!

We have no clear release date of this bad boy at the moment but it should be pretty soon as it is said to hit PSN and PC in Spring 2012. We’ll keep an ear out for you. In the meantime, you can find out more information on Fuel Overdose on the official website.

Nemesys Games have told us that their previously PC exclusive racer, Ignite, has been ported over to iOS platforms and to a great result – do we believe them?

Well this is unexpected. Apparently, one Loopy Lucy from the team at Nemesys has spent the last three weeks attempting to run the Nemesys Engine on iOS and apparently it works! Of course, simply getting the engine over is just a small part of the battle. They now face the challenge of getting Ignite functioning in a manner that suits the platform and those finicky controls.

One thing that was said in our review of Ignite is that it was a pretty simple racer – there’s not much to it really but it is fairly fun. So imagining it on iOS isn’t a huge leap, but it is a big step, if we stick with the analogy.

We’re hoping to see some more screenshots and videos in the coming weeks, all we have right now is the first screenshot at the top of this post. If you want more though, you can watch the trailer with PC footage to get some form of an idea of the game.

More information on Ignite can be found on the game’s official website.