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Stunts Spawns A Spiritual Successor

Posted by simoniker on from the less-repetitive-than-stuntman dept.

Siliron writes "Back in the heyday of DOS gaming, there was one game that had more of a BBS addons-trading scene than any other, and that was Stunts. Now a German developer, Moon Byte, has decided to update the game in full 3D glory. Check it out at the official Crashday site." The new game, which is still in development, seems to be influenced by the original Crash (which was called 4D Sports Driving outside the US) in its custom track creation and stunt-making capabilities.

24 comments

  1. Surprisingly unmentioned by quantax · · Score: 3, Informative

    Stunts was probably one of the few racing games I ever enjoyed; going fast around a set track repeatedly isn't very exciting, but flying off a ramp, getting 100ft of air and then flipping repeatedly till you slam into the ground, that is fun. Between the different cars, and the ability to create your own tracks, Stunts took a simple game model and made it into something that you could play over and over, different everytime. Though the graphics were nothing special, racing in Stunts still supercedes many of todays uninspired racing games.

    --
    "What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
    1. Re:Surprisingly unmentioned by DaracMarjal · · Score: 1

      Ah yes. The advantage of a track editor is that you can create stupid tracks that allow you to go places that weren't anticipated. Suspension bridge + Tunnel = Driving on TOP of the tunnel. Plus there are the really evil things like Suspension Bridge, Space, Space, Suspension Bridge, Concrete Blocks. The Bridge can only be crossed at maximum speed which makes it almost impossible to slow down enough for the concrete blocks :)

      Oh, and this game does run under modern Windows, although you may need to use the PC speaker for sound.

  2. Oh yea, you can download it at by quantax · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can download Stunts at:
    http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2162

    --
    "What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
  3. I loved Stunts... by vapspwi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back in my dorm in the early 90s, when a few of us had such blazing machines as a 386-25 and a 486-66, we played the hell out of Stunts. We had two primary modes of play. One, we had built a special speed track that let you exploit a bit of a bug that would max out your speed at some ridiculous, otherwise unattainable value (the exploit had something to do with catching some air and tapping your brakes, or somesuch), and then scream around the track. We took turns shaving hundredths of a second off each others times. Two, we built tracks that facilitated getting the most ridiculous crash animations. Max out your speed as above, and run up a ramp with a couple of wheels off the track, and watch the 2 minute, car flying 2 miles into the air crash animation ensue. :-) JRjr

    1. Re:I loved Stunts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Im not alone!!!

      Almost identical circumstances, me & buddies. All on our spanky 486's that we had blown waaaay too much money on, playing our own speed track exploiting that bug and trying to shave split seconds away. I can still vividly remember a room of 8-10 of us all trying for that elusive run!

  4. This game rocks by codexus · · Score: 1

    I spent hours designing and driving my own circuits. It's with Stunt Car Racer, one of my favorite racing game.

    --
    True warriors use the Klingon Google
  5. Download - Game is now freeware by gadwale · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can download the game here.

    The site has 3 different versions with special features.

    From the website:

    "The game is FREEWARE as we checked with the former distributors BRODERBUND and MINDSCAPE, who do not have any copies of the game left. Thus you may download three different versions of the game from our site."

    More information, screenshots and a player how-to is here.

    Adi Gadwale.

    1. Re:Download - Game is now freeware by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pretty cool that the game is freeware.

      Misc. Stunts Trivia:

      The developer Distinctive Software got bought EA in 1990. The studio was renamed EA Canada, which produced the famous yearly Hockey, Basketball, and Soccer (FIFA). Need for Speed was made by the same driving "Driving Team", but never got the same marketing dollars as the other "Big Three".

      I agree that it was a very cool* game. The Track Editor was a brilliant idea at the time. I imagine I wasn't the only one who setup a high speed banked course and tried to take the corner fast as possible :)

      * AS much fun as I had with Stunts, NFS PSX remains a favorite for personal reasons.

  6. Moonybe Interview by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's an interview with one of the Moonbyte guys available. Also referring to Stunts.

  7. Crashes.... by alwsn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hope they do the crashes is a realistic fashion in this game. I can't count the number of PC and console racers that talk about their realistic damage engine, only to end up being really lame when I play them. Yes it's cool to see my car get bashed up, but I don't want predefinded levels of 'crashed.' Most games now seem to use the method of 'point x on the car has been hit, load pre determined damage model to point x'

    I want crashes that are different everytime, and if the game claims to have 'realistic damange' end the race if I had a wall head on going 100+ miles an hour. I find few aspects of racing games quite so lame as the whole "I hit a solid wall at speeds that would surely kill me, and all it did was stop by car and load a pre loaded 'my hood is slightly messed up' model" problem.

    1. Re:Crashes.... by GigsVT · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Carmageddon II for the PC had the best I have ever seen. Maybe not "realistic" in the sense that you could drive off after smashing the car pretty hard, but still a very cool damage model.

      If you hit a solid object offset going 150-200, you could actually manage to shear the car in half every now and then. Since the game was really about hitting pedestrians and crashing the car doing crazy stunts, I guess they put a lot of effort into the damage part.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:Crashes.... by ion_ · · Score: 2, Funny

      > I hope they do the crashes is a realistic fashion in this game.

      > I want crashes that are different everytime

      I'm sure that will be the case. Microsoft has contributed a plethora of very handy functions® the programmers can use to create varying and realistic crashes, like e.g. generalProtectionFault(), invalidPageFault(), windowsProtectionError(), fatalException() and the colorful blueScreenOfDeath().

    3. Re:Crashes.... by alwsn · · Score: 1

      heh, you had me hopeful there for a moment.

    4. Re:Crashes.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did that my first time off the starting line in that game. Hit the cement barrier just at its edge. The left half of the car stopped dead, the right half shot off into the water.

    5. Re:Crashes.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check out the Burnout series of games for various consoles. Burnout 2 for PS2 had some of the best looking / realistic crashes ever. There was even a play mode where you could plow into several lanes worth of oncomining traffic and try to cause the most damage!

  8. Umm.... what about THIS stunts remake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Stunts: Final Stage

    http://www.mayhem.sk/index.php?l=1002&r=1002

    Looks and smells like vaporware but this joint did just manage to get their Empire of Magic game published.

  9. A perfect game for a remake by jennis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been wanting to see something like this for a long time, honestly I'm suprised it has taken as long as it has. Stunts had some amazing gameplay, back in a day when successful games depended a lot more on gameplay than graphics.
    One major disappointment with a lot of the modern day racers is the lack of expandability. Take Need for Speed as an example. It's always had good graphics and gameplay. But they never provide any expansion packs, or ways to add more card or tracks. They are much more interested in just pumping out another sequel. I've seen where people have come up with their own tracks for it, but basically you have to hack up the game to do it, its certainly not a built-in feature of the game.
    So what this means is that typically you get about a dozen tracks or so, then you get a couple of variants for each track, usually by driving it in reverse, and thats it. By the time you end up beating the career mode, or whatever the main objective is, you are sick of driving the same tracks and promptly quit.
    This always struck me as such a stark contrast to a lot of the first person shooters out there that strive to make themselves as moddable as possible. You can even find driving games coming out of FPS engines.
    But unfortunately for racing games, you really don't see the same kind of innovation. Instead there seems to be more of a focus on putting out yearly updates like other sports titles where you rarely see any great gameplay improvements, but usually just a few graphical ones.
    Sadly, I guess that is the point. Software companies would much rather sell yearly sequels as opposed to making a moddable game that could provide years of playability like Half-Life.

  10. Bizarre. by fatboyslack · · Score: 1

    Just last night, for no particular reason while driving, my mind drifted back to the good ol' days of Stunts, and racing against the losers in the AI and building our own ace tracks... and then I have a glance at games.slashdot this morning and someones making an updated version! Sweet! My brother and I loved this game so much. Played it heaps, then the version on our computer got screwed up (thxs to my brother) and then we discovered the 3.5" disc was stuffed! So, no more stunts... but we loved it with an unnatural desire.

    --
    Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
  11. Whiplash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anybody remember the old dos game "Whiplash". Probably the closest thing to Stunts' successor. Too bad I can't drive, in games or elsewhere

    1. Re:Whiplash by Allison+Geode · · Score: 1

      i remember whiplash. that was a fun game, but the physics on some of the tracks were stupid.. especially the track that was just one huge "loop", it had two straightaways, and two curves.. the first curve pointed down, and the second straightaway you drove upside-down. it wasn't very realistic, but it was incredibly fun.

  12. Ultimate Stunts by GR1NCH · · Score: 1

    There is also an open source remake of Stunts called Ultimate Stunts. I've been trying to get it to work for me under gentoo but I haven't had any luck.

  13. Hooray. by BruceTheBruce · · Score: 1

    This is good news. It was a fun game that hasn't been brought into the modern(er) age of 3-d accelerated gaming. Now if only somebody would remake Stunt Island. Oh, the hours I spent virtually filming and editing my feats of aerial derring-do...

  14. Damn by ggambett · · Score: 1

    We (small indie studio) were toying with a Stunts remake for our next project... looks like they've beaten us :(

    --
    My website
  15. Deathtrack by mink · · Score: 1

    Stunts and Deathtrack were my main two time wasters back then. Nice to see a re-make of Stunts. I hope it lives up to it's history.
    I'd love to see a GOOD update of Deathtrack.

    --
    Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.