Hi-Octane is a racing/vehicular combat video game released in 1995 for the PC, Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn developed by Bullfrog and based upon their earlier Magic Carpet game code. (Available in the Shop)
It is notable amongst racing games for its wide and open tracks, and the resulting freedom offered to the player, and also for its excessive speed. It suffered in the marketplace due to thematic similarities with the better received Wipeout by Psygnosis (Available in the Shop) and the generality of its graphics engine made for a very short depth of view compared to contemporary racing games.
The game offers a choice of six hovercraft vehicles differentiated by their top speed, armour, firepower, weight and appearance. There are six tracks to race on, with names like New Chernobyl which hint at a bleak cyberpunk world, though the plot is never really explained in the game. The tracks offer different difficulties, various textures and types of landscape like wastelands and city streets.
The weapons available are minigun and missile. Minigun has unlimited ammo but warms up while firing and locks up for some time on overheat; missiles cause more damage but their ammo are limited. Fuel is spent while driving, a car with empty fuel has to wait some time until it is given a small amount of fuel. Shield goes down under fire, and when it reaches zero, the car is shot down and has to spend some time recovering. Death is not permanent but kills add to the player's score.
Booster allows to increase the car's speed for a short time, recharging with time. The boost uses small amounts of Missile ammo.
Certain parts of the track allow to recharge vehicle's fuel, shields or ammo, although at the cost of slowing down. There are also pwer-ups on the tracks, recharging fuel/shield/ammo (10, 100 or 200%) or upgrading the car's minigun, missile or booster, for more power. Other parts of the tracks changed in the course of racing, opening shortcuts or places with scattered upgrades for a short time.
The different vehicles display different attribute values. Though the vehicles appear different sizes, the collision volumes are all identical meaning that you are just as likely to hit something with the Outrider as you are with the Jugga.
There are four camera views, switched while playing: three of them are from behind the vehicle with one being further away than the other, and the fourth view is from the front of the car, with no parts of the car obscuring the sight.
The graphics in the DOS version are VGA resolution of 320x240 or SVGA at 640x480 pixels, both 256 colors. Today, Hi-Octane can be run in a Windows 2000/XP environment using a very specific DosBox setup. It runs well in Windows 9x (speed of the game differs in different resolutions, VGA will play very fast on modern computers). A 80486DX2-66 will run the game very smooth with the least details.
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