Hands-on

Sound effects and more!

Sounds in the game are recorded on MP3s, and the few included in the demo were pretty catchy dance mixes. Your cars let out the familiar electric whine of real RC cars, and you'll also hear appropriate sound effects in the background, like children playing, sprinklers as you drive by front lawns, and more! Among the back drops you'll be racing though are suburban neighborhoods, a toy store, a shopping mall, and a museum. Great detail was taken to model those environments with a variety of appropriate "props," some of which are interactive. For example, basketballs will come flying at you in the neighborhood maps. Ramming into these will cause the balls to bounce away in a semi-realistic fashion. Hit them at a low speed, and you may get stopped cold.

Launching into the concrete pipe

Racing RC style

Gameplay is done from a behind the car, third person perspective. As you race around the map you'll have the chance to pick up various power ups that can help you or hinder your opponents. Among the possible items are batteries for a temporary speed boost, bottle rockets to shoot at enemies in front of you, and oil slicks to disable approaching cars. Water balloons are shot ahead of you like the rockets (But they have splash and are unguided). Our favorite power up was this electricity field that can slow down and disable any cars that come near you. While the this power up is on, your car glows with a blue lightning effect that is very reminiscent of the Quake 3 quad damage look.

A bottle rocket hits home

Car characteristics

There were three cars we got to drive in the demo. One was a light buggy looking vehicle. There was another one that looked like a standard NASCAR stock car. Finally, there was a special demo vehicle that also looked like a stock car but heavier - the NVIDIA RC race car (this demo comes packed in certain TNT2 bundles). All the different cars we tried had a unique feel to them, due to their widely varying stats. The light cars generally had much better handling and acceleration, but got easily knocked around when involved in collisions. The heaviest car (the NVIDIA one) on the other hand, was able to plow through most of the computer controlled cars during pileups.