After a whole year in the making – a process I assume involves wax, oil and those twirly car wash things – the latest and greatest version of SuperTuxKart is now available to download.
Folks, it’s time to get your kart on.
SuperTuxKart 0.8.1
Now, I need to fess up: very little has changed since the release candidate that was pushed out a week ago. So if you went hands on with that version there’s not that much new to find now. Even so, the official release is, legally, I am assured, a legitimate excuse for playing it all over again.
Amongst the new and improved stuff rocking up in this release is a new track based on Star Trek (‘STK Enterprise’), and updated versions of familiar favourites like ‘Old Mine’, ‘Lighthouse‘ and (though my personal un-favourite) ‘Zen Garden’.
Proving to be more versatile than a penguin on its back, this release also adds two new game modes. The multi-player ‘Soccer‘ mode, as the name suggests, involves a football (shock!) and some goal posts; while ‘Egg Hunt‘ is a bit less combative, involving driving around a track trying to pick up as many eggs as possible.
Vehicle-wise two new karts/characters have been added, ‘Xue‘ and ‘Sara’ (the game’s first female character, no less), and the ‘Beastie’ kart has been updated with a change to wheel mechanics that developers themselves are unsure actually makes a difference – maybe try it out and let them know!
Finally, elsewhere, you’ll find:
- Wiimote support
- ‘SuperTux’ difficulty level
- New bubblegum shield defensive weapon
- New combined speedometer and nitro meter
- Added ability to save and resume Grand Prix
- Improved effects
The game has never looked or played as good as it does in this release.
Available for Windows, OS X and Linux, SuperTuxKart can be downloaded for free from the link below. Ubuntu users will want to grab the static binary for Linux.