The Hottest 3D Games

As many people have discovered, the Internet has contributed greatly to the availability of a wide array of shareware, freeware and "trialware" versions of programs of every category. Like games. A quick perusal of a site like The Adrenaline Vault or Meccaworld shows how many great "playable demo" titles are available for only the time required to download them (which, we should add, can be considerable).

For those who are looking for a smaller download that's still fun, check out these older titles:

Racing Games:

Product: Andretti Racing
From: EA
Overall Rating: ***
Pros: Good handling. High quality graphics.
Cons: Sound is a bit thin.
Demo: Get it here! (9.23 MB)

Product: MONACO GRAND PRIX RACING SIMULATION 2
From: Ubi Soft
Overall Rating: ****
Pros: Fantastic quality graphics.
Cons: Sound is thin. Some graphics glitches.
Demo: ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/pub/Sound/mgp/EURO.ZIP (Approx. download time 1 hr. 10 min. at 28.8. Pentium 133, 3Dcard (4Mb), 16 Mb RAM, Direct X6, 16-bit sound card, Windows 95 and 98)

Product: Various Motorsports titles
From: EA
Overall Rating: *****
Pros: Fantastic quality graphics, excellent motion capture work.
Cons: none noted.
Demo: Particularly notable are EA Sports SuperBike 2000 and Nascar 2000. Get the demos here.

Product: Monster Truck Madness 2
From: Microsoft  Demo 18.13 MB
Overall Rating: *****
Pros: Rowdy off-road sim with fantastic graphics on 3D-accelerated systems. No rules. (Try driving into the barn or chasing the cows.)
Cons: No way to render a vehicle useless.
Demo: The playable demo (18.13 MB) of Microsoft's Monster Truck Madness 2 is well worth the download.
Sure, it could be improved. There is, for example, no way to render a vehicle useless -- not even by stopping on the railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train. And you can't inflict damage on scenery other than posts and fences. :-)
But hey, this game rocks! Download the free demo version here.
Tips: Owners of Direct3D accelerators, be sure to turn on Hardware Acceleration in the Graphics menu. Users of older graphics cards might need to disable headlights and tire-track effects - they look great on most other cards, but terrible on the ATI Rage, Rage Pro and Permedia2. These cards also render the taillights and lens flare effects incorrectly. Rendering on newer cards from 3dfx, Nvidia, ATI and Matrox, however, looks great all around.

Products: Interstate 76, Interstate 82 and Interstate 76 Arsenal
From: Activision
Overall Rating: ****
Pros: "Dukes of Hazzard" style road wars. Funky soundtrack, nicely rendered 3D characters and vehicles.
Cons: Some coarse language.
Demos: Get them here. (each demo is around 20 MB)

Flying Games

Product: Flight Unlimited
From: Looking Glass
Overall Rating: ****
Pros: Beautifully rendered 3D scenery. Released back in 1995, this is still one of our favorite "fun" flight sims . (Try pressing TAB.)
Cons: No other air traffic (for that, you'll need Flight Unlimited II).
Demo: Download the demo for Flight Unlimited (18.80 MB). The demo features the Pitts plane. Press Alt-M to change resolution, or press tilde (~) to turn on smoke. Various function keys produce different views, and the J, K and L key-cluster allow rotating of exterior views.
A detailed review of this oldie is Flight Unlimited.

Product: Descent Freespace
From: Volition www.volition-inc.com
Pros: Good graphics (great explosions); good flight training tutorial
Cons: We found this game -- or at least the demo -- a bit boring. Still worth the download, though.

Other game notes:

Blood: ** Stick 'em with a pitchfork. Yet another Doom clone, with a devilish motif.
Comanche3: *** DOS-based copter sim. Game doesn't work well on "low end" systems with Permedia2, Rage Pro and Voodoo2 graphics cards -- on our "low end" test system, it also suffered from sound and graphics rendering problems. Cool copters, though.
Uprising (from Cyclone): You're in a tank-like attack craft on a hostile planet. Run 'em over, blow 'em up., etc. Good graphics.
Myth The Fallen Lords - doesn't work with Voodoo2. GLide driver crashes. Good with Permedia2. Ok with Nvidia or Rage Pro.
Quake 2 - Good with Permedia 2 (GL driver). Fair-to-poor with Rage Pro. Great (as in, GREAT!!) with Voodoo2. Users report running Quake II without difficulty on   STB Velocity 128 using recent drivers and running the GL version of Quake II. Beta drivers with OpenGL support have been available for some time and worked reasonably well. Nvidia released final versions of the new driver in early May, 1998 and they work really nicely. With these drivers, it is possible to run GL Quake II on screens larger than 800x600 on a P133. "Looks fabulous," reports one reader.
Turok - Great with Voodoo2. Good with RIVA 128 or Permedia2. Very slow with Rage Pro.
Subculture: Great with Voodoo2. Poor (faulty textures) with RIVA 128, Rage Pro or Permedia2.
Flight Sim98 - Great with Permedia2 or Voodoo2 in Direct3D mode, okay (but poor mip-mapping) with Rage Pro or RIVA.

More Free Downloads: 

• Games Mania http://www.gamesmania.com/
• Gamecenter http://www.gamecenter.com/
• www.avault.com

For Further Reading:

• 3D Video Cards - Nvidia, 3dfx, ATI, Matrox, etc.
• Voodoo Extreme - gaming info.
• 3D Tools and Info: www.3dlinks.com