Fatal Racing (a.k.a. Whiplash)

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Name: Fatal Racing (a.k.a. Whiplash) Year: 1995 Publisher: Interplay Developer: Gremlin Interactive Platform: PC Genre: Racing Total rating: 72.7% - rated 94 times rate now: please log in to rate Submitter: Res Added: May 22 2004 Warez status: Abandonware

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Author: BrotherLaz Date: Sep 26 2005 - 15:46 Score: 55 points

Fatal Racing is a demolition game much like Destruction Derby, in the guise of a Daytona rip-off with bad handling. The first track is unbelievably boring, and the default difficulty settings are bad, but after some tuning and tweaking, this can be quite a 'different' racing game indeed.

The game is set in the near future, and covers the successor of today's touring car racing. Eight major car manufacturers, including Auto Ariel, Million Plus and Reise Wagen compete with cars resembling old Renault Meganes and Ford Escorts with a paint job. Oh, and there are loops and corkscrew jumps, and you get points for blowing up other cars.

The driving model is halfway between the first Destruction Derby and the first Screamer. Cars with good handling can navigate most tracks at maximum speed, while the others tend to oversteer easily and need every inch of the track. Taking damage slows your car down and causes smoke and flames to spill out, at which point it would be a good idea to stop in the pit lane and wait for your car to be magically restored to peak condition.

The game contains eight readily available tracks, eight hidden tracks and another eight unfinished 'bonus league' tracks. The tracks themselves are of quite wicked design, with jumps, corkscrews, corkscrew jumps, loops, moving speedbumps and narrow bridges with no guardrails. The 'bonus' tracks are unfinished, glitchy and boring, but as far as I know they can only be accessed through a cheat code and are not really part of the game. The other sixteen are definitely fun.

Now for the destruction part. Do yourself a favour and set car damage to 'high' and difficulty to 'impossible'. The game is too easy on anything below the hardest difficulty and highest damage setting. On lower difficulties, the races are short, the opponents are slow and due to the very simplistic handling, it is easy to just speed ahead of the pack and win the race without ever seeing another car again.

On higher difficulties and especially on high car damage, even just staying alive on some of the tracks becomes a challenge despite the fact that everyone has three lives. The AI loves to creep up on slower cars and hit them from behind until they explode, or rocket through the pitlane at top speed, knocking the poor fools waiting for repairs back onto the track with a sliver of life left. Occasionally, an AI driver may even decide to turn around and head back down the track in the wrong direction. Lots of fatalities ensue.

The graphics, while not bad, are not exceptionally good either. The 'horizon' is not unlike the one in the first Flight Simulator, and the high track walls hide a noticable lack of scenery. The bright and unrealistic colour scheme certainly doesn't help. Maximum resolution is 640x480.

The game can also be very frustrating at times. The corkscrews and especially corkscrew jumps are very hard to navigate in one piece until after many, many races. Three out of sixteen tracks have a corkscrew and two have a corkscrew jump, putting five out of sixteen tracks out of reach for the casual player.

There is a funny bug, at least in the version I played in '97, involving two player games. To unlock the second set of tracks, you have to win a full championship on the first eight tracks on Average or higher difficulty. However, it is possible to create a two player head to head championship with no AI cars, quit every race on the starting grid, and unlock the second track set!

Fatal Racing doesn't hold up to Need for Speed or Destruction Derby 2. It is a fun 'survival racer' on the highest difficulty, but on the simpler tracks and lower difficulties, where there is no need to watch the minimap for AI cars going the wrong way or make decisions about pitting or not pitting, the game is too simplistic to last long.

Then again, you need only 6 credits to download this game. If you are down to your last few credits and already have Destruction Derby 2, this is not a bad racing game for its size.

	Type / Title	Downloads / Views	Action
	Download full game	5384	Download
	CD ISO	115	Download
	Cheats	2564	Read
	Cheats	2295	Read

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By Bee_94 - Dec 23 2014 - 11:45 A fun Survival Racer, but if you get used the steering, it could be easy. Winning is Surviving! 7/10 "good"

By Bee_94 - Mar 19 2014 - 17:38 US version: "(loudly) YOU'VE been LAPPED! Come ON, STEP ON it!!" European version: "You've been lapped, come on, step on it!

By Bee_94 - Mar 19 2014 - 17:36 Gamespot gave it 6/10. The announcer is a kick in the bucket.

By Bee_94 - Nov 05 2013 - 19:13 Also, cars explode like a Ford Pinto when destroyed.

By Bee_94 - May 27 2013 - 13:20 Mission twelve to car eleven: "I had a couple of guys in my tail."

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