Submitted by sudo moderator in freeAsInFreedom

Last week's thread.

This week's Free Software Application of the Week is SuperTuxKart, a libre racing game inspired by Mario Kart.

If you haven't played this game yet, go play it. You're missing out. It is a ton of fun.

The game is mainly based on Mario Kart, but it takes some elements of its gameplay from other racing games. For example, SuperTuxKart has a "nitro" powerup that functions very similarly to the nitro powerups in Hydro Thunder (but they respawn in STK). STK also introduces a shield powerup, which will protect you from bowling balls (green shells), exploding cupcakes (red shells, kind of), and basketballs (blue shells) (thank you, thank you STK devs for letting us finally have a defense against blue shells basketballs). You also have the capability to look backwards, which is really useful for aiming a projectile at someone, or making sure you're not about to be a target of someone else's projectile. Bananas are different here than in Mario Kart - in Mario Kart, they were powerups that could be obtained from boxes, and thrown in the path of other players. Here, however, bananas are permanent roadblocks, that cause various effects for the player that hits them. To hit the person behind you with a stationary roadblock, like the banana in Mario Kart, activate your bubblegum shield while looking backward. It will immediately pop, and leave a gum patch on the ground behind you, which will slow down anyone who hits it.

I won't list all of the differences here, but those are some of the major ones, as far as powerups go. The next thing I want to go over is the different game modes. First of all, STK has a story mode, where you complete various challenges on different tracks to unlock more tracks and characters. There's the normal race mode (with a grand prix feature, for those who want it), a time trial mode, a "follow the leader" mode where you have to fight to remain right behind the leader (but not in front of them), an easter egg hunt where you have to scour a track for hidden easter eggs, a battle mode where you have to hit other players three times to KO them (while avoididng being hit 3 times yourself), and a soccer mode that's similar to Rocket League (this gamemode is good). STK also has local split-screen multiplayer, but no online multiplayer (yet).

The racing tracks in STK are mostly good. A few of the newer ones, like Antediluvian Abyss, are very graphically demanding, so they might lag if you don't have a good GPU. There are only a few that I don't like the design of (especially Blackhill Mansion, though this one will be replaced soon), but most of them are fun to play on.

Graphically, I'd say the game is passable. It's not polished, like a lot of commercial games are. Some of the 3D models look unfinished, but they're not that bad. Personally, I don't mind the graphics, because the game itself is so fun.

That's just about all I have to say about it. It's a ton of fun, especially if you have someone else to play split-screen with. The reason why this review is so late is because I just realized there was a new update to the game when I started to write it, so I had to download that and play through the new tracks. All 3 are great improvements over the older ones they replaced!


And that's it for this week's Free Software Application of the Week. Join me again next Monday, for a review of Quod Libet!

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AlexanderReidRoss wrote

I love this game, the only thing I don't like is some of the level design. There's a level where I keep going the wrong way because it's not clear which way you're meant to go.

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