Game Spotlight: Stunts

This Game Spotlight is coming out of nowhere actually. It’s a case of casually looking around the net and then suddenly being reminded of a certain game you used to play way back in the age of DOS based games… wow.

For those of you who remember Stunts (aka 4D Sports Driving), just the mere mention of the name will bring back a lot of great memories of the track editor, racing against those crazy AI opponents, the strange glitches and trying to get yourself to ricochet off an obstacle and fly hundreds of metres into the air… For those of you who don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, prepare to be schooled…

Like many other DOS games of the time, it had killer music… though not much of it, only the intro and start menu from what I can remember. It’s the kind of music that you immediately remember when you hear it and associate it to this classic game… in fact, here’s a YouTube video to highlight exactly what I mean…

The game is a pretty simple concept… you have fast cars, you race them around a track with obstacles, such as jumps and loops, against a timer or a computer controlled opponent. There were a number of preset tracks and a selection of real world cars to choose from including the Lamborghini Countach, Porsche 911 Carrera 4 and Honda NSX… though don’t expect Gran Turismo realism out of them… this was a DOS game after all.

Going up against the timer was pretty fun, but nowhere near as fun or as crazy as challenging the computer controlled opponents. When going head to head against the computer, you’re actually able to choose from a number of profiles to race against… basically just a more fun way of setting the difficulty level of the AI. Although, and it may just be misguided memories from back then, I’m pretty sure the computer player’s personality would change depending on which profile you chose for the opponent. For example, one profile would go absolutely nuts, swerving all over the place if you passed him and took the lead… but another profile would drive more aggressively and end up taking back the lead in what has to be hax driving.

Of course, the best part of Stunts came from its track editor. I remember I used to spend hours making up the wackiest tracks with the most stupid obstacles until I eventually discovered that you could send your car flying into the air if you crashed a certain way… so then I spent hours created tracks that would allow me to fly as high into the air as possible…. I think I remember doing that with San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing on the N64 too…

It would be truly awesome if this game was remade… it’s the perfect time for a Stunts revival with people swapping track data and seeing crazier and crazier tracks being built and conquered.