Trying to remember a game I used to like back in the day. Very likely on an Xbox but possibly PlayStation, somewhere in the 2001 to 2007 time span.
It was a high speed racing game with hovercraft on light bridges. My memory is that the name was either a made up or foreign word or (most likely) both.
Mario Kart?
AeroGauge?
The light bridges I remember were translucent, not opaque like Mario Kart. Also I don’t remember any landscape at all. Just light bridges against a black background. It was very 3D, with very steep parts both up and down. (And crazy turns too, of course.)
In terms of technology, I would say it was several years more advanced than that Mario kart game, about on par with the AeroGauge screenshot. (But without landscape.)
My memory of the light bridges is similar to (or possibly conflated with) the light bridges in the original Halo. I think the ones in this racing game were multicolored, but structurally in my memory it’s the halo bridges, just really long and turny and hilly.
I do remember you could fly off the track but then miracle your landing onto an entirely different part of the track way below it. I want to say we played it split screen, but it’s entirely possible it was single player only and we just took turns.
I think it had to be a version of Wipeout, even though I’m not seeing any version that matches my particular memory in this video:
I remember many of those specific gameplay elements, though. (And there is landscape and buildings and stuff in the background. Also, not a foreign or made up name.)
It’s not F-Zero, is it?
No but that’s an excellent guess. None of us had Nintendo consoles, but some YouTube videos look rather similar to my memory. One exception is the lines. For both F-Zero and Mario Kart pictured above, the lines on the track are horizontal. The game I remember had vertical lines like Wipeout.
I’m starting to think it was an off-brand Wipeout clone, and that’s why I’m having trouble finding it.
Hresvelgr maybe?
Jet Moto?
I should’ve posted a clip of Hresvelgr.
Why was there all these weird futuristic “racing on glowing flying platforms” trend in the late 90s/early 00s?
Extreme-G was another game like that.
Rollcage, too.
Based on a careful re-reading of the OP, I’m pretty sure Hresvelgr is the answer.
Sadly no. Nothing posted yet is clearly the answer, though some of those Wipeout versions are the closest. Also, after seeing all the videos posted, I realize that the elements familiar to me from the Wipeout video are in all the games…the speed-ups along the track, guns to shoot your opponents, etc…
As for the name, the only thing I remember is that I think it had a W (so…Wipeout?), and possibly a Z, but then that train of thought consistently gets drowned out by the name Herzog Zwei, which obviously isn’t it. Fantastic as that game was, it’s over a decade older and a completely different genre.
On a tangent, I’m wondering what the very first RTS game was. I can’t decide between Populous and Herzog Zwei, both of which I played (and loved) to death.
Moving on to PS2 games, there’s Powerdrome:
XGRA:
HSX Hypersonic.Xtreme:
HSX was going to be my next guess. Pipped at the post.
Still surprised it wasn’t Hresvelgr though.
It occurs to me that if I find one fun enough, I don’t care if it’s the one I remember or not. And apparently there are about a billion of these games out there.
So an equally valid alternate question is, can anyone recommend a good game on Steam in this genre? It doesn’t have to be super modern cutting edge, but it also doesn’t have to be super old. Just looking for mindless fun. Is the Wipeout franchise the gold standard?
(My fantasy was that I would find it on Steam exactly like I found Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, which I’m still so happy I remembered and found. Though my high score is still only around 560k…)
ETA: I just realized that it’s technically possible it wasn’t a standalone game at all, but rather one of those Xbox arcade games like Geometry Wars. Both were from roughly the same era, +/- a year or four.
I believe “Pacer” is what you’re looking for:
I’ve not played it myself, and IMO it doesn’t look as “fast” as Wipeout always did, but the reviews are pretty positive.
Agreed, and wishlisted. $40 is more than I was thinking, but the Steam sale this past Christmas when it was 90% off ($4) gives me hope it’ll be on deep discount again at some point.
I would all Populous a god game rather than an RTS, but in any case I think the first true RTS is 1987’s Nether Earth. I don’t think it got a US release.
I distinctly remember connecting two PCs together with a…serial cable?..and playing head-to-head Populous on the same map at the same time, I think the colors were red and blue. Playing it head to head like that felt very RTS.