Rollcage Stage II is an arcade-style racing game

Racing game

A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...

 for PlayStation and PC, developed by Attention To Detail

Attention To Detail

Attention To Detail was a Warwickshire-based British software house that endured nearly 15 years, from its foundation by five University of Birmingham graduates in September 1988 to their liquidation in mid-2003...

, and published by Psygnosis. It is the sequel to Rollcage and was released in 2000. On top of the basic racing concept, the cars can be equipped with weapons, that are picked up on the track as bonuses, which can be used against competing cars. The automobiles themselves, once again, have wheels that are larger than the body of the car thus creating a car that has no 'right way up' and can be flipped and continue to drive.

Differences from 'Rollcage'

• Improved Graphics (such as texture detail)
• Larger selection of cars
• Wider range of tracks
• More race types (such as knockout races)
• Upgrading weapons which give increased capability and are obtained when two of the same weapon are picked up, such as the double driller missile
• Added bonuses

Tracks

There are 6 different environments, with 3 or 4 tracks in each. There are the returning Harpoon (an exotic island) and Outworld (tracks that take place on a different planet) tracks, as well as 4 new ones: Skyway, which are all tracks built high in the sky, Ventura, which is in a rocky desert, and the even more futuristic Leviathan and Jumpgate tracks. These are all spread into 5 different leagues which must be completed to unlock new cars and other things. Jumpgate isn't available until the Type 2 campaign is completed.

Cars

The cars are also different from the original Rollcage. Instead of having to drive the cars of some characters, you get to pick out of a good 20 cars from 5 different manufacturers which included Richter, Vostok, Subsonic, Unity, and Patriot. These cars each have a type 1, type 2 and type 3 version, which all gave a different paint job. Each car, except the first ones obtained when a campaign is completed, is unlocked by winning a race respective to that car. So some things are unlocked by just beating the campaigns, but getting a car for every race won is a nice bonus. The cars in type 3 are only unlocked when you find a smiley face token in the same track that you won them on.

Weapons

All the weapons from Rollcage return except for the Ice Sheet. The original's Wormhole weapon was also changed. The missile weapon is also slightly different. The new weapons include the Tazer Ram, the Radius Bomb and the Stasis Beam. Full descriptions of these and the rest of the weapons can be found at http://www.rollcagestage2.com. The biggest addition though, is weapons becoming better and essentially 'upgraded' when two of the same type of weapon is picked up, for example the Driller missile becoming the Double Driller.

Extra Stuff

There is a mode called "Scramble", where your car is placed on a floating track and the objective is to get to the finish line as fast as possible. This is made very difficult due to the many obstacles such as thin bumpy roads, big jumps, snow on the track, and more. It is also possible to create shortcuts which are usually very dangerous and hard to perform and it is often hard to even discover how to find the shortcut on some tracks where the shortcut is well hidden.

There is also a "demolition mode" where the objective is to destroy as much stuff on the track as possible, either against the clock or in a two-player setting. Additional two-player modes such as the "novel rubble soccer," the "old combat mode," "time attack," and a "pursuit minigame." A "training mode" is included for new players along with "survivor mode" and a race in which every track is raced one after the other with the aim of setting a total record.

Sequels

While ATD and Psygnosis did not continue on the RollCage series, ATD later developed the game FireBugs featuring roughly the same racing concept. There is also a free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 racing simulator, ReCaged

ReCaged

ReCaged is a Free Software, Futuristic, Racing Simulator released under the GNU GPLv3 license. Most inspiration is taken from the Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II video games, but among the goals are higher simulation realism and flexibility.- History :...

, developed by fans of the RollCage series.

External links

• Rollcage Stage 2 site
• Rollcage Stage II at GameFAQs
• ReCaged homepage
• ReCaged project page
• RollcageX - An open source fan-made sequel (before renamed to "ReCaged").