A futuristic racing game developed and published by Ubisoft in 1997, exclusively on the Microsoft Windows platform. A showcase of Intel’s MMX technology and a standard futuristic racing game. There are no weapons, just your opponents and the track with a few hazards in the way. Unusually despite being a 3D textured racing game, there was no port for a home console, I guess the developers were busy supporting the different 3D graphics cards of the day.

There are a few FMV’s in the game that make use of Intel’s Indeo technology which is installed by default.
Content-wise there’s a lot of tracks included, with the ability to download and install further more tracks. Many of the tracks follow their own unique style and are varied in their environment. Some of the tracks feature multiple routes which offer shortcuts where others can increase the difficulty of the race. Making a wrong turn can cause you to lose the race, which requires you to memorise the tracks and their routes.

A championship mode is included, here you earn points depending on your finishing position. Each race has eight opponents, which you can reduce if desired.

Multiplayer is supported, either by using a split screen mode which is done through the keyboard which both plays will need to share. Multiplayer over a network is also supported over IPX or via the serial cable.

The game was only released on Microsoft Windows, making it one of the few PC exclusive games. As it was released in the mid 90s, it supports a wide range of 3D API’s including the industry standard DirectX.

The installer will detect and will load the appropriate version the game that matched your 3D hardware. Some later games support additional API’s and Intel MMX.

So many exe files for different configurations

S3 S3D

This version is playable on 86box using a virtual machine with an S3 ViRGE video card and the Windows 95 operating system. You may have to install updated drivers from S3, as the stock drivers that ship with Windows 98 will lack S3D support.

The graphics settings screen for the S3D version of the game

ATI CIF

Supported on most ATI RAGE cards with pre-2000 drivers, this version has texture warping on the outer walls of the track. Screens here were captured off a Dell OptiPlex GX1 with the ATi RAGE PRO TURBO onboard graphics.

Other graphics API’s supported are 3DFX’s Glide, and PowerVR. POD fails to run on Windows NT 4 with either an S3 or a 3DFX voodoo card., it only appears to run on the Windows 9x series of operating systems.

Windows Theme

A custom desktop theme comes bundled with the game which gives a wallpaper, colour scheme and sound from the game onto your desktop. For Windows 95 you will need the Plus/1 pack as themes are not supported by default. For 98 and ME you can use the Desktop Themes applet that comes with those operating systems.
To install you have to open the installer that’s at the root of the CD-ROM, and then run the WinZip self-extractor and extract to the Themes folder. You can also replace the bootup and shutdown screens that appear when Windows starts up.

The Windows bootscreen

The shutdown screen which appears and disappears quicky, preventing a full screenshot from being taken