By Jim Rossignol on August 4th, 2011 at 3:11 pm.
Students at DigiPen Institute of Technology have been pimping their game, Nitronic Rush, which is a videogame name if ever I heard one. ["NITRONIC RUSH!" - Voiceover Man.] Anyway, there’s a video below, and it depicts what said students are calling “a survival driving game”, which I think means you need to avoid getting chopped up by lasers or running into walls at a speed that is too fast. Anyway, take a look below for neon racing cars and some kind of rotating HAL tower thing. It not only has a videogame name, but it looks like a videogame too. (That’s double points.)
04/08/2011 at 15:16 LionsPhil says:
This looks quite neat.
Although I’m slightly saddened by the opponent racers being ghost-cars. One of the most entertaining things in Flatout 2 was nudging opponents so they swerved into concrete barriers.
04/08/2011 at 15:50 Gnoupi says:
On the other hand, these are some very nice ghosts, graphically.
06/08/2011 at 19:42 emertonom says:
I’m 90% sure those aren’t opponents, but rather “these are where you drove before and failed,” a la Super Meat Boy.
04/08/2011 at 15:16 westyfield says:
Car sprouts laser wings, then proceeds to drive on the ceiling.
GOTY.
04/08/2011 at 15:21 LionsPhil says:
Car has jets for air control, does stunts.
04/08/2011 at 16:24 Mitchk says:
That is one sweet vid. The last crash on the crashes part was very pretty!
04/08/2011 at 23:40 gwathdring says:
I want it.
04/08/2011 at 15:21 CaspianRoach says:
This looks like Trackmania with super-powers. Which is good.
04/08/2011 at 15:29 Mashakosha says:
As soon as I saw those ghost cars on the track, I thought the same thing. Trackmania in a Tron-like world. Now that would be something. And this looks like it certainly is something!
04/08/2011 at 15:40 Bhazor says:
Trackmania with super powers and the looks of Igneous. Sounds good to me.
04/08/2011 at 15:21 BathroomCitizen says:
It looks pretty cool!
As soon as the video begun, that synth arpeggio quite reminded me of the menu music in Cortex Command. Which is a plus, of course!
04/08/2011 at 15:32 Ross Angus says:
That music is awesome. Might have to listen to the Daft Punk Tron soundtrack now.
04/08/2011 at 21:34 mbourgon says:
That soundtrack sounds familiar. Ah, I see.
“Soundtrack by Paft Dunk”.
04/08/2011 at 15:26 lokdlok says:
Reminds me mostly of rollcage!
04/08/2011 at 15:33 Edward F. says:
I think I took Nitronic Rush at a party once. I woke up in Singapore. I live in the states. If this game is anything close to the thirteen hours in-between those two destinations, I will buy it twice.
04/08/2011 at 15:41 PJMendes says:
I love me some Tron and all derivations, and this is looking very interesting. I also tend to enjoy the non-realistic driving games (Wipeout, Carmageddon, even NFS Underground) while unexplainingly hating the rallys and f1s, so that falls right into that.
Hopefully the soundtrack is also heavily Tron 2 inspired.
04/08/2011 at 15:44 LionsPhil says:
Well, the soundtrack on the trailer is pleasingly arpeggiated.
04/08/2011 at 15:43 banski83 says:
Nice soundtrack. Looks bloody hectic to play too. Good stuff.
The name sounds like it’s straight out of the Amiga Public Domain scene from years back. Awesome. :)
04/08/2011 at 15:45 Tei says:
Jesus… this make all other car games looks bland in comparation. Specially with the video LionsPhil post. This car seems to have a lot of tricks in the hat.
04/08/2011 at 15:58 Colthor says:
I misread that as “Survival dating game”.
04/08/2011 at 16:13 LionsPhil says:
…in which Ray Mears has to seduce the small pile of carefully-arranged moss and twigs of his dreams?
05/08/2011 at 09:24 Parthon says:
The girl of your dreams is also the girl of theirs. Take down the competition in any way possible. Be the last one standing for a chance to woo her. But be quick, your enemies will soon recover and then it’s back to the ring for more blood and mayhem. Will you choose the flowers or the crowbar? Dating has never been so brutal!
04/08/2011 at 16:07 Dyst says:
For some reason this reminds me of Igneous, which was brilliant and also came out of Digipen. Do they have an engine that they let people use or something?
http://www.igneousgame.com/
04/08/2011 at 17:41 Urthman says:
I was going to say the same thing. Mostly because I love Igneous and pimp it at every opportunity and wish it were a longer, full-fledged game.
04/08/2011 at 19:56 cwarwick3 says:
What’s most impressive is that these guys made this engine from the ground up themselves.
04/08/2011 at 21:14 sabrage says:
That looks fun as hell! *downloads*
Why do I hear so much about The Ball and yet this is the first time I’ve heard about Igneous?
04/08/2011 at 21:26 zapatapon says:
@sabrage : because you do not read RPS obsessively enough yet?
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/12/09/hot-hot-igneous
05/08/2011 at 08:34 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Ah, yes. I still play that from time to time. I remember that it took me quite a while to figure out how to cross the bridge section.
04/08/2011 at 16:20 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
FUCK YEAH. sorry.
God knows it’s been a while since I saw an appropriately batshit arcade racing game that looks this great. I can barely remember anything since… was it geforce or something?
And yes, gaming soundtracks need to take a queue from Daft Punks Tron sountrack!
P.S.: All the swearing and blasphemy in this post are due to euphoria, not lack of good manners.
04/08/2011 at 16:34 Baggypants says:
Hurrah, At last, Rollcage mated with POD
04/08/2011 at 17:01 LionsPhil says:
Oh wow, POD. I remember trying that because I had a new machine with MMX and it hyped-up that it had a version compiled to use it.
04/08/2011 at 17:40 shoptroll says:
POD was good times.
I’m intrigued by this.
04/08/2011 at 16:35 The Sentinel says:
Superb! More Tron than Tron, considering the way Legacy ruined the light-cycles. This looks crazy in the same way Wipeout was which is always A Good Thing. :)
04/08/2011 at 16:38 Jake says:
So it’s basically a new San Francisco Rush game? Is there any actual relation, as it looks exactly the same and even has the Rush name. It is about time anyway, the Rush games are the best racing games I’ve played.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btc3eraip4g
04/08/2011 at 17:05 LionsPhil says:
Hunh, never heard of that—apparently limited only the consoleboxes.
04/08/2011 at 18:48 Jake says:
Ah I found the developers commenting that they were inspired by Rush and Tron and a powerboat game I don’t recognise.
The Rush games were arcade machines and N64 and Dreamcast ports. Really great games with huge city tracks that had extensive HUGE shortcuts and alternate routes leaping around skyscrapers. Rush 2046 had the cars with wings that popped out. I always wondered why these ideas didn’t make it into more games, Burnout Paradise was the closest to continuing the style but it didn’t have winged cars, alas.
04/08/2011 at 21:17 sabrage says:
I have to say, I’ve never seen a CS surf map adapted into a racing game.
04/08/2011 at 16:49 yhancik says:
More games looking like videogames, please!
04/08/2011 at 17:09 PatrickSwayze says:
DO WANT
04/08/2011 at 17:18 ColOfNature says:
Eloquently put. I concur.
04/08/2011 at 17:48 Urthman says:
I was gonna say the same thing, except less succinctly:
I WANT THIS GAME
Please let it be a full-fledged game and not a teaser proof-of-concept like so many student projects. Games like Polarity and Igneous are terrible teases that leave me wanting more:
http://www.polarityonline.com/
http://www.igneousgame.com/
04/08/2011 at 19:34 OJ287 says:
Yes. The last racer I played was Mario Kart 64 and I will be getting this.
04/08/2011 at 17:19 Demiath says:
Despite the obvious Tron inspiration I get a strong MegaRace vibe, for whatever reason. Where’s good old Lance when you need him?
04/08/2011 at 20:10 _Jackalope_ says:
Damn. I was scrolling through and thought I was gonna get to be the first to mention Megarace! Along with Full Throttle, it was the firsf CD-Rom game I bought when we upgraded all those years ago. I have a lot of love for that game.
04/08/2011 at 17:31 del says:
Was not interested until the car flipped over. Now I’m a little interested.
04/08/2011 at 18:32 Synesthesia says:
Damnn, this looks neat. I have my application pappers for digipen right next to me, gathering dust. Fucking us universities expensive as fuck. Fuck dollar inflation in my country. shit.
04/08/2011 at 18:44 Gabbo says:
It reminded me of Redline, mixed with Tron.
Not a bad thing in my opinion
04/08/2011 at 18:49 sqparadox says:
Hey, look! The next Valve game!
Portal and Portal 2 were both based on games by DigiPen: Narbacular Drop, and Tag: The Power of Paint, respectively.
04/08/2011 at 21:07 LionsPhil says:
I don’t think this really has a Valve vibe.
05/08/2011 at 02:39 Urthman says:
Valve usually takes ugly games with interesting gameplay innovations and gives them the Ultimate Makeover.
This game does not need that. At all.
05/08/2011 at 17:57 sqparadox says:
You make an excellent point: sarcasm doesn’t come across well in text… I figured the overuse of exclamation points would be enough, clearly it wasn’t.
04/08/2011 at 18:55 McDan says:
Awesome, want, ’nuff said.
04/08/2011 at 20:36 Hatsworth says:
I want to have inappropriate relations with this videogame.
04/08/2011 at 20:44 WhatKateDoes says:
Reminds me of Ancient early 3DFX game POD :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysHdEo3GXpA&feature=related
04/08/2011 at 22:23 Baggypants says:
I thought POD was famous for being one of the first games to use MMX, 3DFX had been around for a while.
05/08/2011 at 07:13 WhatKateDoes says:
I remember that it was one of the first games I saw running at 60fps.. and thought it was a very disorientating experience… too smooth lol
05/08/2011 at 08:26 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Ooh! Neat!
05/08/2011 at 12:00 MadTinkerer says:
VALVE HIRE THIS TEAM SO I CAN GIVE THEM MONEY
06/08/2011 at 15:20 DuckSauce says:
0:41
Cars wot can fly!
10/08/2011 at 19:12 Mozai says:
Now I suddenly have a desire for a Tron-inspired art asset set for Trackmania,
12/11/2011 at 02:19 kdbarrett says:
The game is out! You can download it here for free! http://nitronic-rush.com/