Volvo - The Game

[Tank]

There is a promo game for Volvo's new S60 Concept Car. The game has two tracks and six cars, including the new S60. Graphics look very good.

Developer: Simbin Studios

Gave it a little try: A bit difficult, more sim than arcade. Download is 588,8 MB

System requirements:

Minimum:
• Microsoft Windows XP or Vista
• 2,4 GHz Intel Pentiium 4 or faster
• 1 GiByte RAM or more
• 1 GByte HDD space
• DX9-compatible graphicscard with min. 128 MB VRAM
• DX9-compatible Soundcard

Recommended:
• Microsoft Windows XP oder Vista
• 3,0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or faster
• 2 GiByte RAM or more
• 1 GByte HDD space
• DX9-kompatible graphicscard with 512 MiByte VRAM
• DX9-kompatible Soundcard

Download at Volvo.com | Mirror (German, link at bottom)

Screenshots:

First one taken myself, second one courtesy of Volvo

[Zyx]

Cool, I thought this genre (car manufacturer's marketing car sims) had died out. Who remembers BMW's car games from the _way_ back? (If my memory serves, they were in EGA, so that dates them pretty well)

[Chroelle]

Volvo is a great car for racing - especially the S40, which I have long lasting love-relationship with from back in the day with Toca Touring Cars, and so on. And once again this proves to be a way better ride than the concept car that this game is supposed to promote...
The game was very lagging at first for me, but when I turned down the settings on the medium setting (so somewhere between medium and low was my point) the game started to run smoothly - ish. I still had some times when the game lagged and that is quite annoying when it hits as you are turning a corner, and all of a sudden you are head first in the barrierm in the rough with your car turned the wrong way, and for the next 5 minutes you are struggling to get back to the rest of the cars, and not get taken over a lap...
The game had some features, like the option to writ the driver name, but why you then have to choose a predesigned car, with the official drivers name in the window bothered me quite a bit. If you write your name, then it should be so realistic that you also get your name in the window.
Another downside for this game was the fact that there are not too big a pool of cars to choose from, which also means that if you want to drive a race with a Volvo S40 which only has one designoption, then there are gonna be 12 IDENTICAL Volvo S40's on the track...
But then why did I vote a 4 and not something unaccepted - Because the game runs with some quite good graphics, with some quite good cars, with a realistic feel to the race, as you dont feel that you are going to win your 2nd or 3rd race, and then everything from there. I ran 4 races, and never finished higher than secondlast. So this is for the maschochists out there, who really wants to get a run for their money.
A good game with too few things to choose from, and a lack of a single player tournament mode. It seems to have online multiplayer competition mode though.

[Drasir-Vel]

At first i thought this was gonna be a bit of an empty advertizing game for Volvo, but it actually proved to be a pretty good realistic quality racing sim. I like that the cockpit is animated, in that you can see your legs move when you brake and such.

One thing i noticed, is that the game feels very optimized. I had no trouble getting up around 80 fps, while in other games with comparatively simpler graphics, i only get around 40 fps.

The game has a high field of view by default. I imagine it's to show off more of the cockpit. You can decrease it in the options. A high fov is good in first-person shooters, but less so in driving games, when the part you're focusing on almost all of the time, only make up about 30% of the screen.