Note: Review was updated with thoughts on the online side now it's live.
I’ve been playing through Micro Machines World Series [Steam, Deliver2] and I have to say it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s really damn fun and great to have it on Linux!
Disclosure: Key provided by the porter, Virtual Programming.
It’s incredibly hard not to feel completely giddy with excitement with this one. I remember playing with Micro Machines toys a lot when I was younger, collecting hundreds of different vehicles and flinging them around the house.
Then when I got a bit older, I remember being introduced to an actual Micro Machines racing game for the Amiga and I loved how utterly insane it was. Driving along a pool table, entering a pocket and coming out another one, it was absolute bliss for a young child. I remember then moving onto Micro Machines V3 years later and rediscovering my love of this silly racer. Ah, memories! They continued making Micro Machines games until 2006 when V4 landed, which didn’t really get the best reviews. Very close to 11 years later (I’m not counting the mobile title), give or take a few days, how does Micro Machines World Series feel?
A note for any youtubers: Prepare for Content ID claims thanks to the included music.
Thankfully Micro Machines World Series sees the return of great game. A true return to form you might say! It’s very similar to some of the older titles, so there’s a good amount of nostalgia. It has nicer visuals, a decent variety on offer and a mix of online and local multiplayer to keep everyone entertained.
I haven’t been able to test the online modes, but thankfully the AI is really quite good and will give you a real run for your money. I’ve been constantly beaten in the battle modes and beaten a number of times in the races. They’re slippery little devils, add in the weapons and they can be really quite menacing.
Update: Since the game is now released, I've been able to try it out online too and it works perfectly.
Note: I've been told the online play is compatible with Windows, Mac & Linux.
There’s three different game modes which I will go over. The first of which, is the standard race mode! The courses themselves are fantastic and detailed. You will be bashing into beans, slipping over spilt milk, avoiding toy soldiers and harassing your competition with various weapon pickups. Just be sure not to fall off the arena, because that respawn time feels like forever. The tracks are messy, sometimes a little difficult to tell exactly where the track is and what’s a shortcut, but that’s part of the entertainment.
The AI does act a little odd in the race mode sometimes in regards to the weapon power ups. I’ve seen them rather a lot drive around without attempting to hit anyone, then suddenly the moment you’re next to them and—POW—you’re toast, warm buttery toast.
I have to say it never gets old driving into a toaster, to be flung across the map.
The elimination mode is similar in style to the race mode, but with one major difference. You’re battling to stay alive as long as you can. If you fall off the map, you’re out. If you get blown up, you’re out and you get the idea. It’s a very challenging mode, where I’ve possibly had the most fun. When you’re eliminated, you do have the chance to launch a rocket at any of the remaining vehicles, to really screw with them. Although that rocket ability is only available in the offline mode, I imagine to make it more fair when playing online.
The free for all battle mode is absolutely nuts as everything happens so fast and I never manage to stay alive for very long. Each round is a different vehicle, with a different set of weapons and it’s manic fun for sure. The maps in this mode are smaller in size with an arena-style, but still damn fun, especially since they have other effects at play. From electricity that switches around the map, to the pockets of a pool table to quickly get to the other side and so on.
The other online battle modes are also incredibly fun. The team game modes like King of the Hill where the capture area switches are the map, or the Bomb carrier mode as you try to destroy the enemy base are all stupidly fun. Each vehicle having a different set of weapons, with the maps expanded in size utilizing multi-part maps where you need a teleporter, or a launch pad to throw you across are hilariously. Especially hilarious if you manage to nudge someone off at the right moment so they fall to their doom.
The Ranked mode unlocks once you reach a Rank of 10, but the problem is that this splits the online community in two. The community probably won't be huge for the game, which could cause problems later on. Unless you can basically guarantee your game will be massive, there's no need to split the community further.
Each mode has a few mutators you can enable if you're playing against AI or friends locally, but they’re all pretty standard. You can adjust health pickups, weapons and a few others. I was hoping for a few more, since the mutators could have been something to make it even more hilarious, but they seemed to play it a little too safe with them.
The port quality is absolutely fantastic. On max settings, the game has been swimming along like a champ. During my testing I didn’t get a single crash or a single bug, this is probably Virtual Programming’s best port quality to date. Really looking forward to more Linux ports from this team for sure!
The Steam Controller is utterly flawless with the game. It works out of the box, with Steam Controller glyphs (awesome!) and has some really good rumble support with it too. It perfectly switched between keyboard and Steam Controller glyphs and input if you happen to switch between them for any reason.
I do take issue with one part of the game though in regards to local multiplayer. The game does have a big focus on the online play, perhaps a little too much, which is noticeable. It boggles the mind why they limited the racing mode to one person. This would be a fantastic racer to do locally with friends or kids, but no, you can only do the free-for-all battle mode or Elimination with other people locally. This feels like a massive missed opportunity. You can of course race online with others, as all modes are available online.
That’s my only issue with it which won’t affect everyone, considering plenty of people never do any form of local multiplayer and everything else was quite literally perfect.
In regards to unlocking skins and other items, it seems this can only be done by playing online. Which I imagine will be an issue for some people. Skins can be used in offline and online games once unlocked.
If you like top-down racers, with combat elements, then this is absolutely hands down a must purchase. For me, it’s all the little details in Micro Machines World Series that make it a delight to play, as well as the reasonably good AI.
It’s great for me in terms of nostalgia and having another decent game, but also for another younger generation to be able to experience the manic fun of Micro Machines.
I look forward to racing with some of you online, could be a new regular game for us!
You can find Micro Machines World Series on Steam and Deliver2 (VP’s own store). Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I’ve been playing through Micro Machines World Series [Steam, Deliver2] and I have to say it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s really damn fun and great to have it on Linux!
Disclosure: Key provided by the porter, Virtual Programming.
It’s incredibly hard not to feel completely giddy with excitement with this one. I remember playing with Micro Machines toys a lot when I was younger, collecting hundreds of different vehicles and flinging them around the house.
Then when I got a bit older, I remember being introduced to an actual Micro Machines racing game for the Amiga and I loved how utterly insane it was. Driving along a pool table, entering a pocket and coming out another one, it was absolute bliss for a young child. I remember then moving onto Micro Machines V3 years later and rediscovering my love of this silly racer. Ah, memories! They continued making Micro Machines games until 2006 when V4 landed, which didn’t really get the best reviews. Very close to 11 years later (I’m not counting the mobile title), give or take a few days, how does Micro Machines World Series feel?
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Thankfully Micro Machines World Series sees the return of great game. A true return to form you might say! It’s very similar to some of the older titles, so there’s a good amount of nostalgia. It has nicer visuals, a decent variety on offer and a mix of online and local multiplayer to keep everyone entertained.
I haven’t been able to test the online modes, but thankfully the AI is really quite good and will give you a real run for your money. I’ve been constantly beaten in the battle modes and beaten a number of times in the races. They’re slippery little devils, add in the weapons and they can be really quite menacing.
Update: Since the game is now released, I've been able to try it out online too and it works perfectly.
Note: I've been told the online play is compatible with Windows, Mac & Linux.
There’s three different game modes which I will go over. The first of which, is the standard race mode! The courses themselves are fantastic and detailed. You will be bashing into beans, slipping over spilt milk, avoiding toy soldiers and harassing your competition with various weapon pickups. Just be sure not to fall off the arena, because that respawn time feels like forever. The tracks are messy, sometimes a little difficult to tell exactly where the track is and what’s a shortcut, but that’s part of the entertainment.
The AI does act a little odd in the race mode sometimes in regards to the weapon power ups. I’ve seen them rather a lot drive around without attempting to hit anyone, then suddenly the moment you’re next to them and—POW—you’re toast, warm buttery toast.
I have to say it never gets old driving into a toaster, to be flung across the map.
The elimination mode is similar in style to the race mode, but with one major difference. You’re battling to stay alive as long as you can. If you fall off the map, you’re out. If you get blown up, you’re out and you get the idea. It’s a very challenging mode, where I’ve possibly had the most fun. When you’re eliminated, you do have the chance to launch a rocket at any of the remaining vehicles, to really screw with them. Although that rocket ability is only available in the offline mode, I imagine to make it more fair when playing online.
The free for all battle mode is absolutely nuts as everything happens so fast and I never manage to stay alive for very long. Each round is a different vehicle, with a different set of weapons and it’s manic fun for sure. The maps in this mode are smaller in size with an arena-style, but still damn fun, especially since they have other effects at play. From electricity that switches around the map, to the pockets of a pool table to quickly get to the other side and so on.
The other online battle modes are also incredibly fun. The team game modes like King of the Hill where the capture area switches are the map, or the Bomb carrier mode as you try to destroy the enemy base are all stupidly fun. Each vehicle having a different set of weapons, with the maps expanded in size utilizing multi-part maps where you need a teleporter, or a launch pad to throw you across are hilariously. Especially hilarious if you manage to nudge someone off at the right moment so they fall to their doom.
The Ranked mode unlocks once you reach a Rank of 10, but the problem is that this splits the online community in two. The community probably won't be huge for the game, which could cause problems later on. Unless you can basically guarantee your game will be massive, there's no need to split the community further.
Each mode has a few mutators you can enable if you're playing against AI or friends locally, but they’re all pretty standard. You can adjust health pickups, weapons and a few others. I was hoping for a few more, since the mutators could have been something to make it even more hilarious, but they seemed to play it a little too safe with them.
The port quality is absolutely fantastic. On max settings, the game has been swimming along like a champ. During my testing I didn’t get a single crash or a single bug, this is probably Virtual Programming’s best port quality to date. Really looking forward to more Linux ports from this team for sure!
The Steam Controller is utterly flawless with the game. It works out of the box, with Steam Controller glyphs (awesome!) and has some really good rumble support with it too. It perfectly switched between keyboard and Steam Controller glyphs and input if you happen to switch between them for any reason.
I do take issue with one part of the game though in regards to local multiplayer. The game does have a big focus on the online play, perhaps a little too much, which is noticeable. It boggles the mind why they limited the racing mode to one person. This would be a fantastic racer to do locally with friends or kids, but no, you can only do the free-for-all battle mode or Elimination with other people locally. This feels like a massive missed opportunity. You can of course race online with others, as all modes are available online.
That’s my only issue with it which won’t affect everyone, considering plenty of people never do any form of local multiplayer and everything else was quite literally perfect.
In regards to unlocking skins and other items, it seems this can only be done by playing online. Which I imagine will be an issue for some people. Skins can be used in offline and online games once unlocked.
If you like top-down racers, with combat elements, then this is absolutely hands down a must purchase. For me, it’s all the little details in Micro Machines World Series that make it a delight to play, as well as the reasonably good AI.
It’s great for me in terms of nostalgia and having another decent game, but also for another younger generation to be able to experience the manic fun of Micro Machines.
I look forward to racing with some of you online, could be a new regular game for us!
You can find Micro Machines World Series on Steam and Deliver2 (VP’s own store). Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Also, I would like to point out the Steam reviews claiming you can't unlock skins playing online are false, during the livestream I showed off a lockbox I got from playing online. It clearly gave me a skin option, another one gave me some in-game credits to buy skins with.
There's a lot of silly misinformation about the game from people who have played basically nothing of it.
There's a lot of silly misinformation about the game from people who have played basically nothing of it.
3 Likes, Who?
This looks really fun. I'll be picking it up sometime in the future when the budget allows it.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: liamdaweI am not against wrappers in general. It totally depdends the way it works.Quoting: operaAs it's a VP port can I assume it's not a native port? Can someone check please?People are still hung up on that huh?
Yes, it does use eON, I imagine all VP ports will.
You do a realize all Feral & Aspyr ports also use a form of "wrapper" too right? Very few big games won't have some form of wrapping done. For the tiny market we are, it doesn't pay to completely re-write a renderer for us. People seriously need to accept that.
My current understanding of eON is, that it is wrapping Windows binaries (at least this older GOL article states so: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/opinion-why-we-want-native-ports-only.5623 ). In the end you have an Linux binary interacting with a Windows binary. It is much harder to fix bugs inside the original application this way and I just don't like the idea about it. Although it is a acceptable way of porting where source code is hardly accessible i.e. for old games.
On the other hand Feral ports are wrapping Windows APIs and it is source code based which is a totally different approach. In the end you have one single 100% Linux binary. I am totally fine with this way of wrapping and porting.
I might be wrong with my current understanding of eOn. Even VP's explanation on their website is not very clear about how it works.
Quoting: https://www.vpltd.com/services/Our technology allows us to be flexible with all games, providing a fully-optimised and native runtime for each game, giving the player the best available experience under Mac and Linux. It is also possible to deliver a Windows-based game to these platforms without source code: an important factor where developer licensing may be restricted.May be they using differnt approaches for different games. I don't know.
1 Likes, Who?
What do you think of all the negative Steam reviews?
Last edited by Purple Pudding on 30 June 2017 at 4:01 pm UTC
Last edited by Purple Pudding on 30 June 2017 at 4:01 pm UTC
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slaapliedje Jun 30, 2017
Ha, what is up with this? So we recently got Dragon's Lair, which I bought for my Atari Jaguar CD. This game looks like a MUCH better version of Club Drive for the Jaguar. And this thread mentions Rocket League, which I compare to Ballblazer on the Atari 8-bit/5200. Rocket League is that exact game except you can go vertical too.
0 Likes
Quoting: GuestLiam:I'm aware some games do this, doesn't mean I agree with it. Like I said, if you know for certain the game will be popular sure, but I imagine after a week or two finding a game may be difficult here. The game has turned out to be like Marmite, love it or hate it.
"The Ranked mode unlocks once you reach a Rank of 10, but the problem is that this splits the online community in two."
Almost every multiplayer has some sort of gate, so new player can't jump in ranked mode after 5 minutes, and don't make the game worse for players who are already progressed.
0 Likes
Quoting: GuestI'm sure a lot of people will be quick to point out "but it's Unity, why isn't it ported natively? Why the wrapper ?"
Dude, seriously?! Is this made in Unity?! They have wrapped a game made on a multiplatform engine instead of fixing multiplat issues in Unity iself?! Why is that? Some non-multiplat middleware libraries being used?! A game conceptually this simple could easily have been made in vanilla Unity!
Quoting: GuestWell, just take a look at how badly other Unity games have ran on Linux "natively". Same on the Mac actually :)
Absolutely every engine on the planet have examples of poor performance. Every single one. And may I remind you that eON had its fair share of mess in the past too, to put it mildly. If at first we are to talk about history here.
There have been bad Unity releases indeed, especially a couple of years ago, but good releases has long since then proven that those cases has more been to blame on the developers than the engine itself.
I can't get over that this is a wrapped Unity game. That's.. A shock.
Last edited by Beamboom on 30 June 2017 at 9:38 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Hi,
I'm sorry to post this, but I've read many imprecisions (a.k.a. bullshit) in defining what is an eOn/wine port vs a native port. Please look at the below points:
Does this mean that technically eOn/wine ports may be suffering by more overhead due to translations of instructions? Technically yes - but given that modern CPUs are not the bottleneck for games execution, you end up with smooth experiences.
In the past there's been native games (ports) which sometimes were slower than the same OpenGL game running on wine...
Keep in mind the following: porting a game with eOn/wine is probably harder to maintain over time, given that the translation layer has to guess and replace native windows instructions/references with compatible Linux ones.
A native game is instead compiled with target Linux/Mac directly, hence it takes probably much more effort to make it run initially, but then I would imagine that it may play more nicely even after 5+ years when underlying Linux libraries get updated (it is also worth mentioning that if the eOn/wine translation is done extremely well and without hacks also this is applicable).
Why do wine games are slower then running native on windows with same hardware? wine presents a logical translation layer from D3D to OpenGL which has to pass conformance tests and it's very hard to optimize, because the APIs are not a 1:1.
Furthermore OpenGL has a limitation that instructions are executed from a single thread, it needs to keep texture in RAM - so even if you have a dedicated OpenGL render thread as latest versions of wine, there is so much you can do (in fact you have to keep live/copy loads of memory buffers).
Of course if a game is OpenGL native, there is no logical translation and commands are executed 1:1 (I remember in 2009 WoW was faster in OpenGL on Linux/wine than windows). The same applies to vulkan (see DooM) and when you use gallium D3D drivers: in this case the D3D9 API is exposed natively from Linux, so no expensive conversion layer!
As a metaphor, for people who can speak more than one language, the wine D3D to OpenGL port is a bit like translating a language; simple sentences can be translated very quickly and without errors (famous "the cat is on the table" ) but many other more complex, can't simply be translated that easily, and if you want to be extremely specific in not losing any subtlety you have to spend more time translating it properly and ensuring it holds true.
EOn ports, on the other hand have the bonus that have to work specifically for the given title, so if there is a translation layer, they can take many shortcuts to ensure that the final effects are correct but performance is also preserved. They can afford to remove some checks/waits/spins/... as long as that game runs fine. How will this play in the long run? It may be ok, it may be not, especially if the game itself will get patched and gets other shortcuts which would require re-work from eOn. This is why I mentioned that eOn/wine is probably harder to maintain over time.
Using above language analogy, VP are working with the subset of "language" that the particular game uses, so they can analyse and replace the complex sentences with pre made correct ones quite swiftly. Of course this is far from generic but works quite well for the given specific game.
Of course if the game creators suddenly slightly change the sentences, then VP might be in for a rough ride having to re-translate once more those phrases.
A native port instead relies on the ability of the porter to translate the language not at run time, but way before, during development (yes porting is technically development) and/or compile time.
Now, if Micro-machines is a Unity game and VP have decided to use eOn instead of exporting native, this means that the Unity Linux native exporter is perhaps really bad or they ported for Linux and Mac with similar wrapper, so they focused on one piece of software (the wrapper itself) to get two birds...
Hope this helps everyone.
Cheers,
E
I'm sorry to post this, but I've read many imprecisions (a.k.a. bullshit) in defining what is an eOn/wine port vs a native port. Please look at the below points:
- eOn/Wine wrapper --> launches x86 code --> strips/replace external entry points APIs with calls to wrappers --> instructions are executed by OS and when program runs eventually calls back eOn/wine entry points --> these will redirect D3D calls to OpenGL/vulkan equivalent (if the game runs originally OpenGL/vulkan is a 1:1 call, this is why DooM runs so smoothly)
- native code (a.k.a native port) --> launches x86 code --> instructions are executed by OS and when program runs --> calls are made directly to OpenGL/vulkan
Does this mean that technically eOn/wine ports may be suffering by more overhead due to translations of instructions? Technically yes - but given that modern CPUs are not the bottleneck for games execution, you end up with smooth experiences.
In the past there's been native games (ports) which sometimes were slower than the same OpenGL game running on wine...
Keep in mind the following: porting a game with eOn/wine is probably harder to maintain over time, given that the translation layer has to guess and replace native windows instructions/references with compatible Linux ones.
A native game is instead compiled with target Linux/Mac directly, hence it takes probably much more effort to make it run initially, but then I would imagine that it may play more nicely even after 5+ years when underlying Linux libraries get updated (it is also worth mentioning that if the eOn/wine translation is done extremely well and without hacks also this is applicable).
Why do wine games are slower then running native on windows with same hardware? wine presents a logical translation layer from D3D to OpenGL which has to pass conformance tests and it's very hard to optimize, because the APIs are not a 1:1.
Furthermore OpenGL has a limitation that instructions are executed from a single thread, it needs to keep texture in RAM - so even if you have a dedicated OpenGL render thread as latest versions of wine, there is so much you can do (in fact you have to keep live/copy loads of memory buffers).
Of course if a game is OpenGL native, there is no logical translation and commands are executed 1:1 (I remember in 2009 WoW was faster in OpenGL on Linux/wine than windows). The same applies to vulkan (see DooM) and when you use gallium D3D drivers: in this case the D3D9 API is exposed natively from Linux, so no expensive conversion layer!
As a metaphor, for people who can speak more than one language, the wine D3D to OpenGL port is a bit like translating a language; simple sentences can be translated very quickly and without errors (famous "the cat is on the table" ) but many other more complex, can't simply be translated that easily, and if you want to be extremely specific in not losing any subtlety you have to spend more time translating it properly and ensuring it holds true.
EOn ports, on the other hand have the bonus that have to work specifically for the given title, so if there is a translation layer, they can take many shortcuts to ensure that the final effects are correct but performance is also preserved. They can afford to remove some checks/waits/spins/... as long as that game runs fine. How will this play in the long run? It may be ok, it may be not, especially if the game itself will get patched and gets other shortcuts which would require re-work from eOn. This is why I mentioned that eOn/wine is probably harder to maintain over time.
Using above language analogy, VP are working with the subset of "language" that the particular game uses, so they can analyse and replace the complex sentences with pre made correct ones quite swiftly. Of course this is far from generic but works quite well for the given specific game.
Of course if the game creators suddenly slightly change the sentences, then VP might be in for a rough ride having to re-translate once more those phrases.
A native port instead relies on the ability of the porter to translate the language not at run time, but way before, during development (yes porting is technically development) and/or compile time.
Now, if Micro-machines is a Unity game and VP have decided to use eOn instead of exporting native, this means that the Unity Linux native exporter is perhaps really bad or they ported for Linux and Mac with similar wrapper, so they focused on one piece of software (the wrapper itself) to get two birds...
Hope this helps everyone.
Cheers,
E
1 Likes, Who?
About the game itself, I like it! It runs and performs flawlessly on my Fedora box. I would even say that cross platform multiplayer works just fine. (Though can't confirm that with hard facts because I haven't tried that in a local network, just assuming based on how the multiplayer mode via internet seem to work). Thanks Codemasters!
Regarding the Steam reviews, I don't own any of the previous games of that series, so I have a fresh start and mind, though I could indeed imagine that one feels different if one owns some or all official or non-official predecessors.
Regards.
PS: I really don't mind if there is wrapper or not, as long as it just works ;) Please be patient, gaming on Linux is a long term project, first people need to able to earn a-lot-of-money on Linux and recognize it as a serious platform, only then it's time to squeeze every last (performance) bit out of our OS of choice.
Last edited by jens on 1 July 2017 at 7:43 pm UTC
Regarding the Steam reviews, I don't own any of the previous games of that series, so I have a fresh start and mind, though I could indeed imagine that one feels different if one owns some or all official or non-official predecessors.
Regards.
PS: I really don't mind if there is wrapper or not, as long as it just works ;) Please be patient, gaming on Linux is a long term project, first people need to able to earn a-lot-of-money on Linux and recognize it as a serious platform, only then it's time to squeeze every last (performance) bit out of our OS of choice.
Last edited by jens on 1 July 2017 at 7:43 pm UTC
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