BMW M3 Challenge

Doing the unthinkable?

Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to drive one of those great foreign sports cars. No offence meant, but a visit to a good psychologist would be in order if you told me the unthinkable. Life would be so much better if you could buy cars like you’d buy your groceries. However, you can get a fraction of that immense pleasure for free with today’s entertainment options. If you’re a fan of BMW and have visited their site, you would probably have downloaded their M3 racing game. If you haven’t done so, don’t hurry-read this post first and then think about the matter.

Gameplay:

This is a racing game but not what you think. It will be useless (perhaps amusing) to compare it to games like NFS Carbon because it is not designed for pure gaming purposes. It has two racetracks-the Nurburgring sprint and the Nurburgring GT with three gameplay modes-practice, time trial and race weekend. There is also a multiplayer mode. This makes it obvious that gaming was not the original purpose of the game (sic). Then what was? If you’ve read the last post, you should know that this game was intended to boost sales buy giving players the feel of an M3 coupe. But does it succeed? The answer lies on how the gamers get the surreal feeling and this depends on the performance of the car on the racetrack. Well, the engine noise of the car in the game is loud but exhilarating, the gear shift noises are good and design of the car looks good. But this makes you think this virtual car is different from the real one. I can’t really say whether that’s true but if you’ve got an M3, the do let me know. The handling of the car in the game is very, very realistic but harder than the ‘unrealistic’ ones. Well, that’s the price you pay-even for a free game. The tracks are well designed-do let me know if they are the same as the real ones-with barriers in the right places, sand, grass and even a water body if you drive recklessly enough. The ironic part is that even though the game was made for the admiration of the car, it ended up making the track admired.

Features:

You won’t find many tracks here, nor many levels. In fact, there are only two of both in the game-two in Practice, two in race weekend, two in time trial and two in multiplayer. They are the Nurburgring sprint and Nurburgring GP. This is however, the first multiplayer game tested so far.

Story:

Did you expect a story here??? You are just a driver driving the M3

Difficulty:

The game is tough initially-especially because of the handling of the car’s handling but you’ll get used to it quickly. Here’s a tip-slow down on almost every turn.

Graphics and sound:

The graphics are the best among all the games I’ve tested so far but low frame rates register on my PC’s configuration. That means the game runs choppy. The music in the menu is good but the sound of the engine can be annoying sometimes.

Specs:
Gameplay:	9/10
Features:	7/10
Difficulty	6/10
Graphics	7/10
Sound	7/10
Overall	7.2
Age recommendation:	0+
Genre:	Racing
Developer:	Blimey! Games
Publisher:	10Tacle Studios Belgium

Download the game here

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Editorial-1 (what makes a game free)

What makes a game free?

All this time has been spent talking about free games. Some of these games could easily become your favorites. So why are they free? Why couldn’t the developers just sell the games and make money? Well, the list of reasons could be enormous.

1. Marketing:

A lot of these game cost almost nothing to develop except for time and temper. It’s not always someone gets a profit in the marketing business. If they were small time developers, the probably wouldn’t have recognition and therefore hardly anyone would buy their games. The cost of buying storage mediums like CDs would not be recovered and therefore, they would lose money.

2. Not up to mark

Would you pay money for a game like jumper? Probably not. Why? Perhaps because it was too tough, had bad graphics, inadequate story and no feeling of any surrealism.

3. Too short

Did you play Paroxysm? Then you probably wouldn’t want to shell out any cash for it. Technically, paying money for something that gets over quickly (except for food) is not something that everyone would want to do.

4. Just for fun

Some developers just create game for themselves to pass their free time. They know that there is no harm in sharing the games- after all, such sharing mentality is why we get free games. They don’t want to get involved in the hassles of marketing either

5. Supplementing Business

My next game review will be on the BMW M3 Challenge. It is a free game by BMW which you can find on their website. They feel that if people like the game, it may get them interested in buying their cars.

Overall, if you want to get a better understanding of this subject, compare one of your paid games to a free one. You should see the light.

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