Topspeed 300 is a racing game that was developed as a freeware title by Andreas Pollack. Production on the game began in the late nineties, and it was finally released at the century mark. It is a very mundane racing game that features elements of Need for Speed and Test Drive, as well as many other games from the racing genre.
Topspeed 300 has several obvious good and bad points. First and foremost, the game play is quite good. The user only has a choice of two different playing styles, three different cars, and four standard, preset tracks, but the racing action itself is very well done, especially given the fact that this is a freeware title.
Topspeed 300 is a racing game that was developed as a freeware title by Andreas Pollack. Production on the game began in the late nineties, and it was finally released at the century mark. It is a very mundane racing game that features elements of Need for Speed and Test Drive, as well as many other games from the racing genre.
Topspeed 300 has several obvious good and bad points. First and foremost, the game play is quite good. The user only has a choice of two different playing styles, three different cars, and four standard, preset tracks, but the racing action itself is very well done, especially given the fact that this is a freeware title. Another nice feature is the fact that it will play
smoothly on most any operating system from DOS to Windows. It does not seem terribly fussy about the type of machine either.
The most notably nasty thing about the game is the poor graphic display. The graphics are not so bad as an early eighties game where all the cars are geometric blocks, but it certainly does not reflect its more recent age, either. The view is from the first person perspective. The bottom portion of the screen shows the inside of the car, the steering wheel and the gauges. The top portion of the screen displays the speed and other pertinent but changing information concerning the race. The rest of the screen is made up by very poor backgrounds, usually simple little bushes or trees…sometimes a change in the sky. The track also lays out before the driver, and if the opponent is in the lead, it will be visible in front of the user’s car.
The game has a choice of three different cars and four different tracks. There are two basic ways to play the game. The first, most challenging and most fun way, is the two person duel where the gamer simply competes and tries to beat a single AI car. The second is a time trial where the user simply repeats run after run, with no competition, to try and post the best possible time on any given track.
Topspeed 300 is a decent racing game, but not novel in any way or so exciting to be noteworthy. It is simply OK and is a nice freeware title that is great for a collection but maybe not the greatest racing game made in the nineties.
