Deep, Dirty, Cheap Thrills!

With a name like World of Outlaws, it’s easy to think of post-apocalyptic Australian desert vistas and mohawked badguys chasing Mel Gibson for precious, precious gasoline. Well, you’d be partly right, the developer does indeed hail from the land down under, but Mel Gibson is nowhere to be found and the only Mohawks are possibly hidden under racing helmets and rollcages. Instead of Mad Max, World of Outlaws is based on the exploits of real world road warriors who ply the mud and muck in funny looking Sprint cars.
For a couple years now, Ratbag Studios has been quietly putting out some of the finest, deepest, and most satisfying racing games ever seen, despite the games’ budget prices. The developers keep the focus on the track by providing all the options, settings, realism, and career depth hardcore racing fans crave, while keeping the menus friendly and accessible to the casual crowd. World of Outlaws: Sprint Car Racing focuses on the lucrative but not yet mainstream dirt track racing that sort of stands as America’s answer to Europe’s Rally series. It’s quick, dirty, and thrilling, yet retains all the skill requirements and even strategy of more respected racing like Formula 1 and NASCAR. Ratbag has done a beautiful job bringing it to the PC.
Based on Pennzoil’s World of Outlaws series, a short sprint car racing circuit where buggies are outfitted with creative spoilers that look, and act, as sails designed to keep these lightweight cars stable while literally sliding sideways through turns at 100MPH, the game is fully licensed. It features twelve circuits all lovingly rendered down to the last mud clod, and a host of drivers modeled after their real-world counterparts. Once again, Ratbag uses its solid physics engine to perfectly recreate the feel of slip-sliding in the mud on bouncy rubber tires and their sturdy graphics engine to great effect. The cars and tracks look great; as does the gradual transition from day to night (cool sunsets). Staying too close to the back end of your rivals has the added danger of caking your windshield with mud and obscuring your view.
Ratbag offers gearheads all the garage options they could want, letting them tweak pretty much every part of the car. Better tires help keep your footing at the expense of speed, extra weight is helpful around the turns, and a more muscular engine gives you the boost you need to move ahead of the pack safely. It’s a little daunting for the non-mechanically inclined, but extensive arcade options let you keep things realistic enough while furnishing you with an already tricked out ride.
In Arcade Mode, you can try a Time Attack (race against your own ghost), single race on any track, and a Championship. A practice run prefaces each race, which is essentially a qualifying run that determines starting place, and then comes the main event. The race AI is outstanding, with certain drivers performing consistently on each race. You learn to avoid certain cars because that driver is a little too aggressive, constantly trying to nose you into the wall. It’s tough to pass the pack at high speed while simultaneously spinning your wheels in a power slide designed to take you into the next straightaway. Even more challenging is the short-track nature of this beast where, generally, a couple stragglers get lapped at least once, letting the slowpoke knock out the leader with a well-timed maneuver. The result and resultant sense of speed is nail-bitingly tense and convincing.
As if that wasn’t enough World of Outlaws also sports both a surprisingly deep and convincing career mode and working multiplayer. (Opponents are admittedly hard to come by online, but you can’t beat it on a LAN.) In the career mode, you begin at a locker and buy your first car, outfitting it accordingly, and then it’s off to nationwide practice tracks until you’re ready for the big money and your first real event. The amateur AI racers are just as convincing as their professional counterparts, and through a series of clever menus the entire real-world racing calendar is open in front of you.
Oval tracks and realistic physics may not be for everyone but anyone curious and willing to stick with it will find World of Outlaws: Sprint Car Racing one of the deepest and most addictive racing experiences available for any platform. And at the budget price, you might even save enough money to put toward a force feedback steering wheel and pedals set up.

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #150