Every now and then I pull out my copies of Rollcage for the PC and Rollcage 2 for the Playstation. Though everybody always associates developer Psygnosis with Wipeout as far as racing games are concerned, I was always more partial to Rollcage. The controls are not nearly as floaty as you get in Wipeout (seeing as all the cars in Rollcage have, y'know, wheels) so I found it much easier to get a handle on it. Like Wipeout, Rollcage's big hook is that these cars are not bound by the normal laws of earth physics - in Wipeout, that meant all your vehicles were sleek anti-gravity hover cars, but in Rollcage, that means that your vehicles can drive around on the ceiling as long as there's a surface that leads you up there. Numerous tracks are designed so that there are things like speedboosters and weapons littering the walls and ceilings. There's also a ton of destructible buildings and objects strewn around the sides of tracks, too, and you can set some clever traps if you shoot at them as you pass by. Rollcage 2 is definitely my favorite, though, as it has improved physics and over twice the content of its predecessor.
There's a lot to like in these games. They just feel... dirtier than Wipeout's ultra-clean utopia. If the hovercars of Wipeout are F1 racers, the vehicles of Rollcage would be the Extreme Offroad Trophy Trucks - and I wouldn't have it any other way. Unfortunately, Rollcage never achieved quite the cult status Wipeout did, so it kind of fell by the wayside. A shame, too - wouldn't mind seeing a Rollcage HD turn up one day.
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