Autobahn speeder

Autobahn speeder
developer	Davilex
Publisher	Davilex
First title	Autobahn Raser (1997)
Last title	Autobahn Raser: Police Madness (2005)
Genre (s)	Racing game

Autobahn Raser is a racing game series from the Dutch company Davilex , which was specially tailored to the computer game market in Germany . The games were published by Koch Media and Davilex itself. The first part of the series was published in 1998. All titles contain spaces in compound words .

Based on speeders highway - Engine and other racing games, which also originated the concept speeders wore in the title. All Davilex racing games with this term in the title are therefore referred to as the Raser series.

Davilex also published similarly titled games across Europe, such as: B. A2 Racer in the Netherlands, London Racer or M25 Racer in Great Britain and Paris-Marseille Racing in France .

Game content

The basic game content is car races with series vehicles through German cities (including Berlin , Dortmund , Munich ) and on the federal highways connecting these cities . All games offer a career mode in which the player earns money through racing successes, with which the player pays for repairs, parking tickets and new cars.

The cities are superficially remotely similar to the original models. The most noticeable identifying features are the sights placed along the route. In later parts of the route the route also led through shopping malls , underground tunnels and public green spaces such as the English Garden in Munich. The player not only meets his racing opponents on the tracks, but also police vehicles, lightning boxes and a lot of oncoming traffic. The police track the player's vehicle and try to bring it to a standstill, after which the player is forced to pay a fine.

The driving experience is that of a fun racer , which, among other things, allows the vehicle to be steered during a jump. The vehicle selection primarily includes vehicle types that are often visible on German roads, but sports cars such as the Porsche 911 have also been integrated. The vehicle names were falsified due to the lack of official licenses. This is the name of the Opel Astra in the game Opol Astro , and the Smart is called Clever .

Autobahn Raser: Mercilessly on German autobahns without rules

Autobahn speeder: Mercilessly on German autobahns without rules
Studio	Davilex
Publisher	Koch Media
Erstveröffent- lichung	1998
platform	Windows
genre	Racing game
Game mode	Single player (multiple users / saved games can be created)
control	Gamepad , keyboard , steering wheel , joystick
system advantages preconditions	Minimum: Windows 95, Pentium 133 MHz, 16 MB RAM, 50 MB hard disk space, sound card Recommended: Pentium 166 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 3D accelerator card (3dfx Voodoo, PowerVR)
medium	CD-ROM
language	German
Age rating	USK

Backstory

The background story is told in a full motion video when the game starts. The game is about a secret society called "Autobahn Raser", which you join as a participant. This union has been around for more than 20 years and is monitored by the police. Every year they try to stop the speeders without success. The goal of the annual races is always Berlin, and the driver with the shortest overall time wins the race.

The game

The game supports several profiles for saving the game scores. The races consist of 9 stages, each consisting of a city tour and a motorway trip. The stages are each driven with three other drivers, they always use the car models that have similar data to their own vehicle. While driving, collisions cause damage, which is displayed in a bar. With increased damage, the car becomes more difficult to steer. If the damage display is filled while driving, a car appears to the traffic watch and repairs the damage free of charge, but you lose valuable time. There is also a petrol simulation and the stages contain at least one petrol station. If you do not stop there, a traffic watch car appears and the player receives enough gasoline to reach the next gas station or the end of the stage. The other three simulated drivers have no damage and gasoline simulation. The stages contain traffic signs and speed cameras that can almost always be avoided, as well as police vehicles that follow the driver if the speed limit is disregarded. In city stages, you can "outsmart" this by driving in oncoming traffic; on motorways this does not work because of the guard rails.

The game engine uses DirectX 5 and can use software rendering to display the graphics at resolutions of 320 × 200 and 640 × 480, it is also possible to use 3D accelerators that support at least DirectX 5 with a resolution of 640 × 480 . Further settings for the engine are available in the separate program Settings.exe in the game directory. On modern PCs with Windows XP, the game can crash when refueling, from Windows Vista the game crashes when the game menu is loaded.

In addition to the game, the game CD also contains an update to version 1.4, which fixes some bugs. The data carrier also contains numerous drivers for the then current hardware, as well as a utility program.

A demo version that only contains the Cologne stage has also been released.

Available vehicles

Seven cars are available in the game. At the start of the game you receive a Trabant. After driving a lap, you receive money that you can use to buy other cars or to upgrade your own vehicle. If you have enough money, you can buy other vehicles, but you will lose the old car and any upgrades.

All vehicles (data for non-upgraded cars)

Name in the game	Real name	Top speed	acceleration	Braking force	Traction
Brabant	Trabant	175 km / h	20%	30%	40%
Opol Astro	Opel astra	200 km / h	30%	40%	50%
Wolf cart	Volkswagen New Beetle	250 km / h	50%	60%	70%
BWM Z3	BMW Z3	300 km / h	70%	80%	90%
Parche 913	Porsche 993	325 km / h	80%	90%	100%
Mersedes CLK	Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR	330 km / h	85%	95%	100%
Lambdaghini	Lamborghini Diablo	350 km / h	90%	100%	100%

Upgrades of vehicles

Surname	description
engine	Top speed and acceleration are improved
Wide tires	Acceleration, braking power and grip are increased
turbo	The vehicle gets a turbocharger , usable with the Ctrl key.
SECTION	Braking force is improved
6 speed transmission	Top speed and acceleration are increased
Repair	Repairs damage to the vehicle.

Stages

Type	Surname	Remarks, sights
	Berlin	Berlin Cathedral , Reichstag , Victory Column , Memorial Church , Berlin Tempelhof , Brandenburg Gate
	Berlin - Hamburg
	Hamburg	Bismarck Monument , St. Peterskirche , Kunsthalle , Central Station , Speicherstadt
	Hamburg - Cologne
	Cologne	Central station , cathedral , Severinstor
	Cologne - Munich
	Munich	Angel of Peace , Victory Gate , Castle Nympfenburg , Palace of Justice , Feldherrenhalle
	Munich - Berlin
	Berlin	The same route as in the first stage, but with more obstacles

Other parts of the series

Autobahn speeder

• Autobahn Raser II (1999, Davilex)
• Motorway Raser III (2000, Davilex)
• Autobahn Raser IV (2002, Koch Media)
• Autobahn Raser World Challenge (2003, Davilex)
• Autobahn Raser - The Game for the Film (2004, Koch Media)
• Autobahn Raser Police Madness (2005, Koch Media)
• Autobahn Raser Destruction Madness (2005, Koch Media)

Offshoot

• Vacation Raser (2000, Koch Media)
• Speedboat Raser Europe (2001, Koch Media)
• Europa Raser (2001, Koch Media)
• USA Raser (2002, Koch Media)
• Taxi Raser (2004, Koch Media)

Based on the Raser engine, two games for the television series Knight Rider were also released in 2003 and 2005 .

reception

Opinions of the trade journals

The trade magazines were not enthusiastic about the games, so the first game in the series only received an average rating of 50.5% for fun. From a technical point of view, the games were not convincing: The graphics were outdated in all parts and the background music was often referred to as " elevator music " or compared to porn films . The main point of criticism, however, was the game itself. The inadequate driving physics was criticized, as was the unimaginative course of the game and the unspectacular route design, especially since the cities apart from the sights looked very monotonous. All in all, the Raser series has always been overshadowed by major competitors such as B. the need-for-speed series. In connection with the Raser series, the reviewers of the specialist magazines were also quite often polemical : GameStar magazine described the game Autoraser - the game for the film as a "playful total loss on the highway".

Commercial win

Still, the games were such a huge commercial success that they continued on and on. The main reasons for this were, on the one hand, the identification of the intended audience through well-known names of cities, cars (e.g. Brabant based on the Trabant ) and highways as well as the easy entry into the game. Last but not least, the striking naming with the catchwords “Autobahn” and “Raser” contributed to the fact that inexperienced occasional gamers in the specialist trade tended to prefer these products. After all, the pricing of initially 49.95 DM and after the introduction of the euro 20 to 30 € was very much tailored to the mass market, whereas other games usually cost 70 to 90 DM (40 to 50 €).

Criticism from politicians and the media

Politicians have repeatedly expressed themselves critical of the game and its striking title. In March 1999, Volker Bulla , the then managing director of the Bündnis-90 / Die-Grünen parliamentary group in Cologne's city ​​council, faxed various department store chains to take the game off the shelves, as selling such a game thwarted all police efforts and the increasing recklessness in road traffic is encouraged. In September 2003, Dirk Fischer , traffic policy spokesman for the CDU / CSU , also called the series of games " absolutely perverse in terms of the road traffic regulations ".

The BILD newspaper also published critical statements and linked a car accident in the summer of 2003 in which two novice drivers had run over a girl with the game. According to the newspaper, the game encourages young people to “drive up, slow down and push away”.

The film

In 2003, the film Autobahnraser was shot under the license of Michael Keusch's game , for which another game was released in 2004 under the license of the film. The actors involved include Alexandra Neldel and Collien Fernandes .

Web links

• Autobahn Raser Series at MobyGames (English)
• Review of PC games to highway speeders 4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reviews of Autobahn-Raser on pcgamesdatabase.de
2. ↑ GameStar edition in mid-2003
3. ↑ PC Games 5/99, p. 3
4. ↑ CDU / CSU: "Autobahn Raser" is perverted! , PC Games
5. ↑ PC Games 11/03, p. 13