Slipstream 5000

The Good
Who would have thought during the mid 1990s, that those games we had on PCs will be the end of the line of the excellent computer games? Yet, that's exactly what happened. The standalones came, the PC game industry started to decline. Worse yet, as far as I am concerned, the game industry itself started to decline. The game makers ran out of ideas, many games started to issue the II, III, IV, whatever other versions of the same games. Yes, better graphics, better sound, larger displays, etc., but no new ideas.

And that's is where Slipstream 5000 comes into the picture. It was a new idea and interestingly enough, it wasn't even copied or made different versions. It was a unique game and still is a unique game. A futuristic race with vehicles which fly like airplanes, but they are not airplanes, nor do they pretend to be. They fly within a predetermined course and with the joystick they can be steered any which way the player likes to fly them. Of course there are obstacles like bridges, dividers, alternate paths, natural looking surroundings, etc. Along the way, by bumping into bonuses, the players can pick up extra boosters, weapons, energy, etc (those don't slow you down).

The paths are alternating to be outdoor and indoor (like a long cave inside a mountain). Each course is "circular" (not actually a circle), meaning it returns to its starting point and each race consists of several rounds on the given course. During the race the players can shoot each other, but one shot is not enough to eliminate an opponent, but it can slow the opponent down, so it can be overtaken. Same of course with the player, who also can be shot and slowed down. So there is great strategy, flying/driving skill needed to win.

There are a bunch of vehicles (and imaginary drivers) can be selected, each with different skills, advantages and disadvantages. There are a bunch of different courses, each looking totally different and different difficulty too.

The player can play individual races and championships.

The graphics of course are the graphics of those days, but within that limits are excellent, and so is the sound.

Not many people knew it (or knows it), but those days (with the big bulky CRT displays) the so called LCD stereoglasses started to show up on the market. I had one of those and Slipstream 5000 was compatible with those, thus I played it in spectacular stereoscopic 3d (the type nowadays you can see in IMAX 3D theaters). It was breathtaking. I don't think those (LCDBIOS based) are even available today, so if you missed it, you missed it probably forever. The later versions of stereoglasses (DirectX based) are not compatible with Slipstream 5000.

The Bad
At the time I wished it had fancier dashboard, instruments, I was sure that the next version will have those, but there was no next version.

The Bottom Line
I just did above. If you are a true game lover, I highly recommend to do what I did. Keep your current quad CPU zillion Ghz, 4-8 or more Gig RAM, large LCD display computers for whatever you are using them for, but find an old clunker (like a Pentium 150, 233, 600 or whatever were those numbers), an old CRT display, with as much RAM as the computer accepts and try to look for those old games, which were the real new game ideas. Your eyes will get used to the lower quality display pretty quickly, because the games themselves will mesmerize you. Try to find a copy of Windows 95 (which still essentially DOS based, so can use both). You will not regret it.

Oh yes, and if you somehow can put your hand on those old old LCD stereoglasses (warning: only those which needs the LCDBIOS), only a handful of old games are compatible with those, but Slipstream 5000 is one of them (some more: Descent I, Descent II, Whiplash and a few more), definitely do so.