Sunday Drivers

Video kart racing has a long lineage with many pretenders to the Mario Kart Throne. I've been playing Mario Kart since version 1 and I really found its latest incarnation on the Wii with the motion sensitive controller to be quite relaxing. A lot of us video drivers are hoping that the Microsoft developed Xbox Avatar Kart Racer Joy Ride is going to be controllable via the much hyped Nataller. Just a few more months!!

While we wait for any Joyride related news, presumably we will get an announcement at this years E3 next month, We bide our time with a few decent Kart Racers Available and Soon To Be Available on the Xbox Indie Channel.

First up, and Available NOW!!

Click To Download

I've been playing RaceDrome for a few days now, it's currently high on the indie channel top downloads list and I've been able to quickly find some decent online matches. Did I mention that we love kart racing? RaceDrome isn't a kart racer in the classical sense though, there's no powerups or speed boosts :(

But, as it's the only Avatar Kart Racing Game currently available on the Xbox Indie Channel, and as Xbox Indie Games are the only games I play, (besides the occasional round of MTG or Smash TV) I must play this one. 

The game features a single player mode which I have yet to play, honestly I think the dev could have omitted this mode, Kart Racing is a social experience. Whether its splitscreen in the same room or via the network and up against the world. Luckily the game does have an online mode. Unfortunately collisions are turned off when you play online, I assume its due to network bandwidth issues.

But then again, for 80 points the game is quite fun. And should probably hold us over until we can play,

I like my karts to be cartoony

The screenshot above is from a work in progress game from Gustav Olsson

He's also got a video up, it's from a PC build of the game though and the Avatars aren't rendered. Still, the Game does look promising,

Racing Game Gameplay from Gustav Olsson on Vimeo.

This game is going to feature online multiplayer as well and looks very nice, including collisions. I don't know about powerups though, but maybe if we ask the devs real nicely they'll add them in. The future of kart racing on the indie channel is a short one though, once Joyride is released I can't imagine anyone will be playing either of these games.

There's also a neat looking Stunt Kart Racer which will probably be available on the Indie Channel shortly,



It doesn't look like this one has any racing modes though, just some fun Avatar Stunt Driving.

Have fun on the virtual tracks!