Winter Race 3D: Gameplay and Musings

Genre: Sports/Racing
Platform: Windows 9x
Developer: Pantera Entertainment
Publisher: Pantera Entertainment (there were also editions published by Scholastic and Masque Publishing)
Year: 1997

It's winter! It's snowing outside! And it's time to celebrate by playing a very sucky Windows 95 game! If you've watched LGR's video of what he thinks are the 17 worst PC games of all time, then I'm sure some of you may be familiar with this title. Winter Race 3D was #4 on his list, and for good reason.

In some ways, you can consider it to be sort of like the long lost mutant brother of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. Although it has SOME collision detection unlike Big Rigs, Pantera Entertainment's Winter Race 3D is one of the most impressively broken games I've ever had the time to even come across.

Also note that not only was this game available via direct order from Pantera Entertainment, but it was also distributed by Scholastic in elementary and middle schools for $10. Talk about a bargain that happens to be a rip-off at the same time! The Scholastic version also has one notable difference: some of the billboards seen in-game have John 3:16, which is easily the most ubiqutuous Bible passage in the world, printed on them. Later copies were also distributed by Masque Publishing with different packaging.

Note: Gameplay was captured with Fraps 3.5.9, and title and options screens captured in Virtual PC 2007 emulating Windows 98 Second Edition... because when I run the game in Windows 7 the title screen is messed up beyond any recognition. And if any of you are wondering, YES - it DOES work in Windows 7, even without compatibility mode! All you need is a copy of the old Direct3D retained mode DLL (which, for some reason, was removed in Vista and 7, but can be easily found on the internet - the filename is d3drm.dll) in your C:\Windows\System32 directory (or SysWOW64 if you're using a 64-bit system, like I am) and it'll run. Just hit enter if the title screen is messed up like I described.