Free Racing Games: Guide to Free Open Source Games, Part 4

The thrill of speeding along at over 100 miles an hour or the danger of crashing into another vehicle traveling at similar speeds is a feeling most of us will hopefully be unable to experience in our daily lives. There is of course one way to live out our white knuckle fantasies, Virtually.

Racing games have evolved tremendously from the first white box blips in Atari's Night Driver to near photo realistic physic simulating games of today. All of the entries in this installment of the Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games share the quest to cross the finish line first.

KidStuff

Racing is the first sport children come in to contact with. Foot racing, Bike races, it seems to come natural. Put two kids together and they simply must find out who is faster. Here are a few games for the kids and the children living inside some of us adults.

SuperTuxKart
This game is an enhanced version of TuxKart which was inspired by the Mariokart series. Featuring colorful mascots from the open source community, SuperTuxKart is a little too easy for most on its lowest difficulty setting. Racing enthusiast can ratchet it up for a good time and a greater sense of speed. SuperTuxKart has the power-ups and weaponry familiar to MarioKart fans as well as an interesting collection of levels. Grab SuperTuxKart binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac are available here.

Slune
Blending a social message and fun can be tough, somehow the French developers behind Slune mange to pull off both nicely. In Slune Tux has been charged with the task of delivering AIDS medication to treatment centers as fast as he can. Linux Mac and BSD downloads are here. Slune for Windows is here.

ExtremeTuxRacer
Building on the ever popular Tux Racer formula, Extreme Tux Racer features new models, maps and GUI elements, but is still a penguin sliding down an icy slope. The goal is to beat a specified time and collect the required number of herrings on the way down. Although this new version is a little less polished, leaving your penguin stuck in a few places it is still a lot of fun. ETR is available for Windows, Linux and Mac here.

Just For Fun