Back in mid 80’s I played a really neat PC game called “Car Builder” where you got to pick from a large list of options of what type of engine, transmission, suspension, brakes, body type, etc… in order to build any kind of car you wanted to be tested to see how well it performed. There was no racing involved, no money. Just you and your ideas of what combinations would create the perfect car. I thought that was a neat idea for a game, and I always hoped some computer company would come along and re-create the game to include more parts options and things like that. If anyone knows what I am talking about and knows of another game that resembles “Car Builder” please let me know.
Car Builder is still around but I have no idea how updated it is.
Compared to the screen shot at Home of the Underdogs it looks quite updated.
Well, yeah, the graphics are better but the OP was looking for more parts options. That’s what I don’t know about.
Car builder is still around. I have the latest version on disk. It isn’t very new however, it runs throught DOS only and has pretty lame graphics. Why haven’t any software companies caught on to the Car Builder idea? With all the racing sims that I’ve played most of them put you in some kind of sports car like a Corvette or a Lamborginie where the only modifications you can make is to the paint scheme and transmission type. A few games allow you to earn money through racing to purchase upgrades for your car but those options are far too limited. I don’t care about the super hot 2005 Turbo Corvette and I really don’t care to race it either. I just want a fully customized Penumbra Car with tons of options for any modifications at my disposal. Why do the software companies only focus on the racing aspect of their car games? When I was a kid I loved putting together plastic car models and I even enjoy it today. Where is the plastic model PC game?
Something like this may work for ya too.
Motor City Online also let you customize your cars, IIRC, but EA’s shuttin’ it down.
Why are they shutting motor city online down?
Probably not enough people playing it to pay for itself.
I have that, I don’t think it’s what Penumbra has in mind. There’s also Supercar Street Challenge, which allows the user to modify various experimental cars and then drive around in them.
Regarding Motor City:
IMO, they were doomed from the start by not having any sort of off-line practice mode and the $10 monthly fee. Seems like only EverQuest does well as a fee-based Internet-only game. With Motor City going offline at the end of August, I hope EA finally releases an offline-version.
We’ll see. The next generation’s about to launch and I think there’s a market that’s not being met that will be in things like SWG and Planetside. But the problem, from the way I read that, is that the comparative few who get in early maxed out their cars, and then newbies trickled in and were clueless and got no help.