KZBlog

Just a quick update about Astana Racer. The creators have released a patch that solves some of the problems people were having with the game, which you can download here. You also apparently have to edit the file “config.cfg” and change the variable “use_video_player” from true to false. This file is located in Program Files/Astana Racer/media.

I should warn you that this patch did nothing for me I did manage to get through a few more laps before the game crashed on me. So it’s a bit better. But I still have yet to make it through one whole race without the game shutting down. Which is frustrating because you have to complete races to unlock new races. So I’ve only been able to race on the same course over and over. I think I do have enough experience to give a slightly better review.

The main problem and the reason I suspect my computer keeps crashing is that the system requirements are extremely high. My laptop was only one year old when I put Astana Racer on it, and it was the second most poweful laptop in Linear. But it still isn’t fast enough to handle Astana Racer. If they want a product that will sell well, they need to target it not to the latest and greatest, but to a reasonable average of what is out on the market now. A 2.4Ghz CPU is not extremely fast, but I have a pretty up to date Intel Processor at 2Ghz and I’ve been able to play any other game I have wanted to on here, so I don’t know why Astana Racer is so demanding.

As I mentioned, you only have access to one race until you complete it. That gets a bit boring if you don’t win. Also, in some places you can apparently go off the road but in other places you can’t. So the first race starts off with your competitors shooting across trees and grasslands, something that took me a while to figure out as I was stupidly sticking to the road. However if you try to go off-road in other parts, you’ll find yourself crashing into invisible barriers. So you have to guess when you can go off-road and when you can’t. Meanwhile the computer drivers seem to know, making it hard to win.

I don’t know if these are problems related to my system or not, since I can’t run the game well anyway, but it does seem like the steering is very sensitive. Also when you crash, everything slows way down. So you are trying to get back on the road but you are stuck in slow-motion land listening to your engine grind. Then suddenly, you’re back to normal reaction time. Between these two factors and the fact that there are light posts and traffic lights everywhere, I find myself crashing with ridiculous frequency. Often I get caught in loops. Crash into a light post, try to steer around it and end up veering into a light post on the other side of the road. Rinse and repeat.

The interface is also not particularly user-friendly. You can design your car and paint it, which is pretty cool. But the designs are not named, just numbered 1,2,3,4 and so on. You can also customize your engine and brakes and steering and so on, but again the variants aren’t named. Nor does the game explain what each one does. I assume engine 2 is better than engine 1, but I don’t know if there are any trade-offs. I hope Astana Racer 2 will give information about how the different parts increase or decrease your car’s performance. I would also like to have some idea which parts my car already has. I think I bought the same tires twice. Overall the interface reminds me of a Linux game, built by nerds for nerds who don’t mind coding and don’t need explanations of things. I would recommend that they have the game tested by actual users or consumers and take their suggestions into account.

What’s done well? Pretty much everything else. The graphics are really good. You do feel like you are driving around Astana. The environment is highly recognizable. The cars look awesome. The customizations are highly varied and include some nice ideas. It does seem like once you get the hang of driving and the sensitive steering that the difficulty level is about right–not too easy and not too hard. It looks like a really good game and the only reason I’m complaining about it still not working is that I think it would be a fun game to play.

By the way, I noticed in looking up information that people have already pirated Astana Racer and have it up on a million illegal download sites. I don’t know who is doing this, but give the developers a chance to get some return on their time and effort and investment. You’re screwing over a bunch of poor programmers who are trying to do something good that incidentally can improve the “brand image” of Kazakhstan in the world. And seriously, it costs 1500 tenge in Meloman. It’s not that much money! If it worked right on my computer, I would definitely pay two or three times that.