I have to confess that I haven’t played a car-based video game in a long time. I’m not sure if it was Night Driver or Cruisin’ USA, but I am lost when people start talking about how GTA 3 or 4 or 5 was better than 7 or whatever. I really don’t care, and I don’t know what makes up a “good” car-based game, but in my imagination, I can think of plenty that would be terrible. Can you?
How about Dealer Row? In this one, you play against a time clock and have to visit as many dealers as possible to buy a new Khundai Mountainous that your partner wants and get the best deal possible. I could show you a picture of the Mountainous, but it’s a crossover so generic (except for the pointless creases on the side and “distinctive lighting signature”) that you’d forget what I showed you ten seconds later anyway.
You can secure a deal at one place, but if you go and try to beat that deal at a dealer across town, there’s no way to ensure you can go back and get the same deal from the first place later. Level 2 involves getting the best trade-in value, financing rates, and trying to avoid add-ons like TruCoat. Oh, and you have to buy a car that day. Don’t buy or get screwed? You lose, Game Over.
Reviewers would dub it the “Sh**tiest game ever” and “A total soul-sucking waste of time.”
A worse one would be called Autopian – The Quest For Clicks. You play an automotive writer, and you need to keep coming up with posts until something hits and you get “clicks” from views. Three or even four “stories” in the game’s “day” is not unheard of, and you have to beat a Google algorithm that changes over the course of your play time in Level 2. You compete online against your friends, fighting for the same “audience” as set by the game’s software.
Once again, reviews of the game would be awful. “Terrible, and completely unrealistic since nobody would be required to do anything like this in real life.” If they did, though, I think they’d actually love it.
Matt suggested “24 Hour of Le Mans Steward,” where you simply add weight to competition cars.
Now it’s your turn. What horrendous ideas for car video games can you come up with?
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com
Auto Designer Challenge
A text-based game (remember them?) that consists solely of emails back and forth between you, the designer, and your higher-ups wherein they demand ‘a more active side profile’ and a ‘more contemporary DRG’ and more ‘sporty’ fake vents and creases on the exterior, more screen and fewer switches and more gloss black ‘richness’ in the interior, while you try to defend your design and your dignity.
“Used Car Shopping on Facebook” – a Pokemon style car hunting game
You get bonus points for smashing the ‘Is this still available’ button, but half of your leads ghost you for no reason.
Lowball offers can win you a good deal but also can cause sellers to reduce your health.
Seller used HIDDEN RUST! It was extremely effective! Buyer took 50 damage!
You used DOT TIRE CODES! The seller was unharmed!
Seller countered with JUST INSPECTED! Buyer took 10 damage!
You countered with CROSS STATE SALE! Seller takes 20 damage!
DMV ‘attacks’ include:
Failing to notarize your title in NC
Bill of Sale printed on two pieces of paper
Arguing the sale price in a ‘pricing duel fight’ with the angry DMV clerk
Playing a match3 mini-game while waiting for a timer at the DMV level
I mean, Nintendo could kill it with this one.
CAR: THE GAME
Single player. Pick your player
A: That poor Volkswagen assembly guy. Can you make enough GTIs or Atlases? Are you going to be employed tomorrow?
B: (Picture of John Lovitz) The executive. Can you pick the right mix of models, propulsion types, incentives etc to make your sales increase?
C: The designer. Congrats, you’ve landed the BMW account. How
uglystrikingly different can you make the cars before people stop buying?D: Chrysler salesman. (Very hard difficulty)
E: Rich SOB. Congrats, you’re rich as hell and now you can build that car you’ve always dreamed about. Will it be a success or are you throwing your money away?
F: The Consumer. Limited funds, big dreams, little hope.
Used German Luxury Car Owner
In the game you buy a used German luxury car. The check engine light comes on during your drive home. You diagnose it and fix it to score points. You go for a drive. There’s some kind of electrical snafu. You diagnose it and fix it to score points. You go for a drive, and it’s really running well now. Just a joy to drive…until the timing chain guides fail. You diagnose it and fix it to score points. You go for a drive and it’s running great. But you discover an oil leak. You decide it can wait until you deal with the water pump which is starting to make noise. While fixing these items to score points, you decide to do an oil change. Uh-oh, glitter in the filter. Time to do the rod bearings….
It just goes on and on and on like this until you finally sell the thing for pennies on the dollar compared to cost of ownership. You didn’t win. No one ever wins.
The game ends when you buy a car from a Japanese manufacturer.
And yes, I’m still bitter.
That game was already created in the 1980’s. It was called Frogger. My frog always got ran over dammit.
Designated Driver 2: Leaving the Concert.
You get to be the designated driver for your drunk ass friends, trying to get them all home after the big concert and before they barf in the backseat of your car. But you’re stuck in the parking garage for the whole game inching along, trying to not get backed into or run over other drunks staggering through traffic. All the while, each friend’s ‘barf gauge’ slowly creeps into the red. When the gauge goes red you have to jump out and drag them from the backseat before they ruin the upholstery. The longer it takes to get them cleaned up the farther you slide back in the line to get out.
Features:
The color pallet is all earthtone and grey.The sound track is your drunk friends singing showtunes off key with all the wrong lyricsYou can turn on the radio but all the stations are AM talkshow old men telling you how the USA used to be a great country and how they knew how to fix everything.The check engine light is on.Your friends won’t wear their seatbelts so the warning light is on and the reminder keep dinging.
Muffler shop waiting room:the movie:the game
A hardcore racing sim that’s actually a typing game, where you have to manually type every steering, pedal, and shifter input.
Here’s one:
Take a beloved racing game franchise from the ’90s.
Remove the exotic supercars.
Remove the scenic vistas and diverse track designs.
Remove the frantic, tense, high-stakes police pursuits.
Replace all of that with putting ugly fiberglass bodykits and go-fast stickers on crummy economy sedans and racing them at a brisk 80 MPH around the same handful of city streets for several hours.