Autobahn Total

The Good
Ability to choose a few colors for your car, randomly generated highways, traffic that actually merge lanes and such

The Bad
Just about everything else. The car you drive can't stay on the road in a turn going fast without hitting the brakes HARD (and if you don't, you hit the center rail and flip over!, or you climb the side hill and flip over also!) There is no sense of speed in this game at all. The AI car in the duel is crazy. He'll ram you (completely ignoring you on the road) and he doesn't take damage while you do! He can also all of a sudden go faster than you (even though both cars are identical except for looks).

The Bottom Line
Autobahn Total was supposed to be a game about road-racing on the German Autobahn, but it's so lousy I felt cheated for paying $1.50 for this game.

The graphics supported are only 320x200, 640x480, or 640x480 with Drect3D acceleration. No higher resolution are available.

Once you get into the game, things did not improve. There are only 2 modes: race against time, or race against AI. The idea is to reach the specified highway exit (i.e. finish line) before the other car does if you're in a duel, or just finish fast if you're going against the clock. You can specify one of the many stages available, or let the program combine them randomly for a longer race, with random weather conditions. Pick the vehicle (2 Porsche-like vehicles), and the color, and you're off!

So you start the race (which takes 10-15 seconds to load), and you're behind you vehicle. There is no cockpit view, just a "hood" view. Let's get started... Accelerate, and start weaving through traffic. Beware though when you turn... Simple turns are okay, but tighter turns require you to slow WAY DOWN or you'll go off road and flip the car. And yes, your car's condition IS recorded... And if your car is totaled (go down to 0% condition) you're automatically disqualified. Fortunately, you can just try again!

The handling, as explained before, is terrible. There isno sense of speed in this game, when when the speedometer says you're going 160+ mph. The main problem going that fast is you can't turn worth a ****. You have to slow down to turn, and if you slow down, your opponent bumps you (or bump someone else, doesn't matter). There is no handbrakes so you can't do powerslides or snap turns.

At least the scenary changes a bit, from day to dusk to night to rain and so on. Courses ar erandmly combined so the path will vary a bit, from tunnels to sharp turn/switchbacks to fast straights to s-curves, these are all on the autobahn. And the various traffic, from trucks to buses to cars, will be in your way, in vairous lanes. The strange thing is... the autobahn is always 3-lanes wide, no 2-lanes or 4-lanes... ALWAYS 3 lanes. Weird, heh?

All in all, Autobahn Total is the 3rd lousiest driving game I've ever played. (the other two would be Boss Rally and Ambulance Driver). Lousy control, lack of sensation of speed, and lack of game modes, lack of graphics, etc. all doomed it to status of "cheap junk". It could have been done in 2D, and it may have looked better. Pity.