Wacky Wheels

So, I played this in my childhood. More than a few times, and enjoyed it but it was meh back then. Now? I ADORE it. Not just because it hearkens back to simpler times, not because the AI are great (I beat them semi-regularly), but the 2-player mode is fantastic. Sitting next to a loved one or friend while wearing out your fingers facing them and the AI, (I won 1 of 15 races to a real person, but managed to beat all the AI after a horrible start to the tournament) laughing with them at pranks we pulled on each other, etc. It was GREAT. I got my money's worth out of it in one session, even if I never paid for it again (We didn't get to the bonus levels, nor did we play with the fast engines. So there's a lot more content still that we haven't played.) The one thing I didn't see (that I recall from Days of Yore and looked for today) was the dirt piles that flipped the monitor upside-down. It's hard to beat the fun & craziness of driving split-screen when all of a sudden you hit some dirt and are driving upside-down until the next pile of dirt comes along. Especially when it was your friend or loved one who dropped it on you. Worse? When you hit your own traps. The Hedgehogs are amusing as they sit (or stand) in their various positions doing various things, just waiting to be picked up. Sometimes hedgehogs are the difference between winning and losing, but I still managed to lose on Champion mode. I played on Keyboard. You can remap the keys as desired (I did). Thank you @GOG for bringing this childhood game back to life!

Since my gamepad wasn't properly recognized as a joystick (buttons worked, but neither the sticks nor the d-pad worked), I've disabled joystick support in the config file and used QJoyPad instead and mapped the dpad and buttons how I wanted to have them. I've tried various image filters as well via config-file, just choose something with 2x and you're good. Now to the game itself: I've finished all cups including the bonus cups on easy as first, tried all characters and the duck shooting and consider it done since I've got no desire to play it anymore. The graphics, soundtrack and effects can neither compete at all with the two years older Super Mario Kart (1992) nor with the excellent PC version of Street Racer (1994) which was released only a month after Wacky Weels. The framerate is fixed to a very low value which makes playing a bit tiring, the resolution is really low and the music is the usual apogee midi stuff. The characters are cute, the track design is solid, the weapon system is good and the controls are responsive. As weapons you get to throw hedgehogs at your opponents which you have to roadkill first while they are doing weird stuff on the road (including sitting on a toilet). The can be used like non bouncing green turtle shells. Every hedgehog you didn't use gets transferred to the next race, so your stack can grow quite a bit. In addition to those, there is also a fireblast, an oil slick, a bomb (which is more like a mine), a weird stationary couple of bouncing red balls and some ice cubes. There is a brake and a handbrake although you really have to be give the handbrake only a slight tap to not completely turn around, it is very useful though once you get the hang of it, It was fun for a while and is worth a dollar (not the $2.99 I've paid though) imho and has a certain historical value. Just when I thought, there should be a modern sequel, I just got to know, that there actually is although I wonder why they use flat "3D" in 2015.

Back in the day I was a PC gamer and I didn't own a SNES, therefore I never owned Mario Kart and only got to play it when at a friends house. Lucky for me this little gem came around and filled that Mario Kart sized hole in my life. I still love to boot Wacky Wheels up and just chill and kill time shooting hedge hogs at the other racers. It may feel a little slow to more modern gamers and the AI is... well not the best. But if you can look past that and even grab a friend to play along with, I don't think you will be disappointed!

I think people aren't aware, and the store page doesn't mention this, but there is a shareware, regular and upgrade edition. The latter contains twice as much race tracks as the regular version making it 30 in total. It's nostalgic and charming (at least for me) but mediocre as a racing game. It was a cheap mariokart knock-off back in 1994 and the one I had most fun with compared to skunny kart or street racer. Still like the simplicity of it though. Pros + Upgrade Edition (30 tracks) + 2 player Splitscreen normal racing mode with CPU karts + Kid mode (only steer left and right with auto acceleration and ultra low speed) + Championship difficulty is very challenging + Smooth running preconfigured DOS version with autoscaling + Charming (music, sounds, animals, weaponized hedgehogs) + Multiple Taunts available in multiplayer + Remapping controls is possible Cons - Low default framerate (has nothing to do with performance) - No racing mechanics involved in terms of sliding - Not a good kart game and never was especially when compared to mariokart (SNES) It gets 4 stars because it's the upgrade edition, I'm nostalgic and runs smooth on win 7 (ran into green screen upon first launch which was solved by launching DOS configure executable via GOG Galaxy and selecting Ddraw). The only reasons why you want to pick this up are: Nostalgia Have an interest in gaming history Having kids and want them to play something simple (kid mode) You are into simple retro games Ideal to play in splitscreen with someone who has no skills (because you don't need any) If you are looking for a good mariokart clone then I would recommend Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart because you won't find it in here. Happy hedgehog hurling!

I used to play this one with my brother when we were kids but have never been able to get it to work on my PC, so needless to say I snapped this up the second I saw it. My 5 YO loves Keen, and most of the other DOS games I let her play, so I got this for us to play together as I knew she would love it. As expected, she's stoked about it, and I'm pretty chuffed too! Thanks, GoG! :D