Number of posts : 1189 Age : 23 Location : Classic Motorsport Hub Registration date : 2016-01-04
Subject: Crashday: Redline Edition NOW on Steam! Thu 17 Aug 2017 - 22:18
It's been a few days now, but the "Remake" of the classic wrecking race game Crashday has been released upon us in its Steam version, "Redline"!
For those who know Crashday, skip the next few lines. For those who don't and are probably asking now, "What the heck is Crashday and why have I never heard of it?", here's why (History Lesson with Pascal incoming):
The History of Crashday:
Crashday was (or rather, is) a single- and (now!) multiplayer action racing game made by Moonbyte Studios and initially released by Atari. Who are Moonbyte Studios? Well, basically two guys. Jan Bodenstein and Robert Clemens from Hamburg, Germany. In 1999, both, at the age of 14, had the idea of a racing game based on games like "Have a N.I.C.E. day!", "Carmageddon" and "Stunts", each of which were basically mixed together in Crashday. There are LOADS of videos showing development of Crashday (I mean, from the early 2000s on), but one I'd like to show now, is the "Self-Running Demo" from 2001.
It includes 3 ambiences (Day, Sunset and Night) and a car which would become the "Cube RS" (AKA Volkswagen Golf Mk IV) - There are pre-alpha trailers, alpha and beta gameplay, etc. on YouTube, but I won't bother showing them in this thread. Google is your friend Anyways, in early to mid-2006, the game was first released in Germany, then Russia and after that, in North America. The system requirements are, by today's standards, low as all hell. By 2006's standards, they weren't. (I'm not an expert but I don't think all Graphic Cards had this thing called Pixel Shader, which meant if they didn't, all the textures would just be...black.) The game would require at least Windows 2000 to be run on the PC, a CPU with 1.5 GHz, 512 MB of RAM and 1.5 GB of Disk Space. The initial game (Version 0.0) was so buggy, it barely sold itself until two major updates (Version 1 and Version 1.1) were released. It included 12 cars, which were renamed due to licence issues. Here's a car list, sorted by order of unlocking in-game.
Spectran TI - Mazda 6 (First Generation)
Buster GSt - Opel Astra F GSi (built 1991 - 1994)
Hunter XT-5 - Honda CRX (Second Generation)
Cube RS - Volkswagen Golf Mk IV (Fourth Generation)
The Wrecker - Humvee (Hummer H1 used by US Military)
Pickup V8 - Dodge RAM (Second Generation)
Apachee 200X - Lamborghini Murciélago
The ORIGINAL Apachee:
(NOTE: In the Alpha Version, the Apache 200X represented a Bugatti EB110. This car now exists as a mod under the name of "the Original" in the Steam Workshop. The Original Apachee)
The Judge 5000 SV - Lamborghini Countach
Incubator V12 - Nissan Skyline R34
The initial 2006 game featured a Singleplayer mode, a Career mode, a Multiplayer mode (which never really worked after co-developer Replay Studios went bankrupt) and a Track Editing tool where players could build their own tracks and share them. Also included were six minigames of the categories Jumping, Checkpoint Chase and Mobile Bomb.
The Soundtrack features songs of the genres Rock&Crossover and Electronic. Most Rock songs were written and recorded by Aachen-based band Pencilcase (including the game's title track, "Crashday") and a band called LowBuz. The Electronic tracks were written by Peter Struck and Jan Morgenstern (whoever they are, I have no idea. Wikipedia won't tell me, lol)
Five Months after the game was released in Germany, MoonByte released an SDK tool which unleashed the game upon the modding community. Loads of mods such as cars (like the DeLorean, BMW's etc.), tracks and even tile sets for the Track Editor have since been made. The fact that the game's file structure is basically non-existent (or so I've read) makes it even easier.
However, the game never really got rid of bugs, glitches and the more-than-occasional fatal errors and thus, CTD's. And this is where Robert Clemens comes back into life and basically single-handedly, remakes Crashday.
I got my copy of Crashday with a CD of a 2009 issue of the German Gaming Magazine "Computer BILD Spiele". I loved the game from the get-go, and since I've discovered the world of mods, I found web pages like FlatOutJoint, which has sadly been taken down in 2015, I think, and also, all kinds of mods from other pages. However, I didn't like how the game kept crashing and basically killing my PC. (Mostly my fault for editing all the game files )
Anyways, I first read about a Steam release of Crashday in late 2015, when a Facebook friend tagged me in a comment. Since then, I followed development and was very keen on when it would finally appear. On July 13, 2016, MoonByte Studios, mainly run by Robert Clemens, announced a Steam Greenlight version of Crashday, which, expectedly, received a LOT of upvotes. Clemens posted a video where he talked about the history of the game and development of the "Redline Edition" of Crashday on the game's YouTube channel on August 2nd, 2017. Watch it here:
Finally, on August 10, 2017, CrashDay: Redline Edition was released on Steam and is, as of August 17, 2017, on a 20% discount, which means, you can grab your copy of the game for $9.59 here: Crashday Redline Edition on Steam
The game features all original content of the original Crashday and also has full Steam Workshop support. Mods are marked with a blue "M" icon in game. The game has a launcher and mod manager included.
However, it's still Crashday after all, and that means that things like this shouldn't be impossible:
However, the game is receiving patches and this means, that hopefully the bugs will soon be history.
My sources about the history of the game:
My mind and memory
Crashday FB page
Wikipedia (only for the cars list!)
Steam Store
EDIT: I've been in touch with Crashday's FB page (which isn't just a fan page but official) and I've been given the hint that a player shown in the screenshot above, "Nummer", has been a known cheater for some time. In case any of you actually buy the game and bump into him in multiplayer, don't hesitate to report him. (When I've been in a game with him, I noticed his N2O boost being way stronger than the normal in-game boost, so watch out.)