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Acclaim's radio-controlled racer, its tournament unlocks and battle modes, the arcade and mobile ports, and the fan community that kept it running long after the publisher closed.
Re-Volt is a 1999 racing game from Acclaim Studios London, designed by Paul Phippen and Simon Harrison. Players drove radio-controlled cars through museums, supermarkets and construction sites, collecting weapons to hinder rivals and unlocking cars and tracks through success in the tournament modes.
Re-Volt puts a toy-shelf spin on arcade racing. Its cars are radio-controlled models, and its circuits are built inside everyday places, from a steamship to a supermarket. Acclaim released it in 1999, and the game's mix of tournaments, weapons and unlockable cars gave it a long afterlife among fans.
When did Re-Volt come out?
The 1999 release reached Windows PCs, the Nintendo 64, PlayStation and Dreamcast. Acclaim Entertainment published it, and Acclaim Studios London developed it. The game was designed by Paul Phippen and Simon Harrison, and American PC sales totalled 16,528 units across 1999.
The Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 editions followed the PC release onto different hardware, and each had to be adapted to its console. The PC version remained the reference point for the series, which is why fans later kept that version alive.
Toy cars, household courses and a weapon on every corner, a 1999 racer that its fans refused to let die.
What was the premise of the game?
The premise was simple: radio-controlled cars race around environments that are everyday places. Players raced through museums, steamships, construction sites and supermarkets, which turned familiar rooms into tracks with corners, ramps and hazards. Each setting kept the racing close to the scale of a toy.
The scale of those spaces was part of the appeal. A toy car crossing a supermarket aisle or a museum floor felt like a genuine race, although some critics later argued that the environments were too large for only a handful of cars.
How did weapons and pick-ups work?
During a race, cars could collect random weapons and use them to displace their competitors. The weapons were picked up on the course rather than bought, so luck and timing mattered alongside driving skill. A well-timed hit could change the order of a race in seconds.
Unlocking was the reward structure. Cars and tracks came from success in the tournament modes, so a player who wanted a new machine had to win cups and races first, and that progression kept sessions moving forward.
What game modes did it offer?
Re-Volt offered single races, a championship, time trials, practice, a stunt arena, a multiplayer tag mode and a Clockwork Carnage race. Single races could be played by up to four players, and the championship ran four races for points. Each mode rewarded a different style of driving.
| Mode | How it works |
|---|---|
| Single Race | Race computer opponents for first place; winning a cup unlocks a car |
| Championship | Four races for points in a cup; finish third or better to advance |
| Time Trial | Beat the challenge time on unlocked tracks to unlock reverse and mirror variants |
| Practice | Explore tracks with no time limit or rivals; collect the star on each track |
| Stunt Arena | Collect 20 stars among loops, ramps and a half pipe |
| Battle Tag | Multiplayer only; a star hidden in a battle level starts a timer |
| Clockwork Carnage | 30 wind-up cars race to the finish in any race level |
How did the championship and its tries work?
A championship was a cup of four races, with the highest rank earning the most points. To advance, a driver had to finish third or better in each race, and failing that cost one of three tries. Running out of tries ended the championship altogether.
The third-place rule kept the pressure on in every race. Winning a cup was the big payoff. It unlocked additional levels and cars, so each completed cup opened a new step on the ladder and gave the player a reason to take the next tougher event.
How did time trials, practice and the stunt arena reward play?
Time trial focused on the fastest lap in any unlocked race. Beating the challenge time on a cup's tracks unlocked reverse, mirror and reverse mirror versions of those circuits, which gave one track several different personalities. Those versions were a reward for consistent, precise driving.
Practice had no clock and no rivals, but each track held a star to collect. Gathering every star from a cup's tracks unlocked two new cars. The Stunt Arena was a small space with a loop, ramps and a half pipe, holding 20 stars that only the higher-performing cars could reach. Collecting all 20 unlocked a game mode of its own.
What were the multiplayer modes?
Battle Tag was a multiplayer-only mode in which one star sat hidden inside a battle level. Collecting it started a countdown on that player's timer, and the first timer to reach zero decided the winner. Play continued until the last player failed to collect the star.
Clockwork Carnage swapped the usual eight RC cars for 30 wind-up cars, and any race level could host the event. That change made the mode feel like a different toy altogether, with clockwork cars trundling where radio-controlled ones would zip.
Was there a car editor for fans?
Yes, although it was never an official tool. Acclaim put out a car editor in October 1999, only a few months after the game itself. Using 3D Studio, players could pull cars out of the PC game, alter them or design fresh ones.
That accident gave the community a lasting head start. Fans began building new cars and courses, and the editor's existence made Re-Volt one of the more moddable racers of its time.
Was there an Xbox version?
Development had also started on an Xbox edition named Re-Volt Live, and a barebones build reached closed testers. That test copy went to people trialling the Xbox Live service ahead of its launch, yet no fuller version ever shipped on the console.
The full game was cancelled close to completion. Its development version has since been played on a modified Xbox that can run games from a storage device, which is how the unreleased work survives among fans.
Which arcade and mobile versions were made?
In September 2004 Tsunami Visual Technologies released an arcade version under licence from Acclaim. Extra courses appeared in the arcade edition too: one was a fan creation by Gabor set in Venice, and another came from Kurt Arnlund, a former Tsunami employee.
Mobile versions followed a longer path. WeGo Interactive, based in Seoul, bought the intellectual property in July 2010 from Throwback Entertainment in Toronto. Nick Baynes, who had led design and production on the original, then teamed up with his studio Big Bit on the iOS release, Re-Volt Classic, which arrived in October 2012. An Android version followed in April 2013. TouchArcade scored Re-Volt Classic at three of five stars and described it as pedestrian rather than exciting.
WeGo then released freemium games, Re-Volt 2 in September 2013 and Re-Volt 3 in June 2016. The Re-Volt 2 servers closed in July 2017, and the later title was launched first in selected territories before a wider release.
How was the PC version re-released?
GOG.com re-released the PC game on 3 October 2013, based on a community-developed 1.2 beta patch. The release was pulled in January 2014 after a dispute over code that WeGo had used without proper consent from the patch developers. Fans who had built on that beta saw the episode as a setback for community work.
After WeGo closed, its rights passed to Superday Inc., formed by ex-WeGo staff. Korean publisher H2 Interactive relisted the game on GOG in April 2022, reverting it to the original 1.0 version, and the Steam release followed on 29 July 2022 with Steam Workshop support.
How did critics rate the different versions?
Reviews differed by platform. Aggregators sorted the platforms neatly: PC and Dreamcast landed in the favourable column, the Nintendo 64 edition and Re-Volt Classic in the mixed one, and the PlayStation release at the unfavourable end. Individual reviewers were more varied in their verdicts.
Computer Gaming World praised the PC graphics and the realistic radio-controlled handling, although it found the in-game map editor poor. IGN liked the graphics, gameplay and interface but criticised the track editor, and NextGen called the PC version a fun romp that might have been even better with a bolder approach to its toy theme.
Ratings were mixed elsewhere. Computer Games Strategy Plus scored the PC edition at four of five stars, while AllGame handed out three for PC and two and a half for Dreamcast. A PlayStation reviewer gave the game two stars and recommended spending the money on another title. Controls were a recurring theme, with steering wheels and joysticks working well on PC while a gamepad was often the most effective choice.
The Dreamcast version earned strong marks from some outlets. GameRevolution gave it a B+, and PlanetDreamcast scored it 8.5 out of 10, while N64 Magazine put the Nintendo 64 version at 73 per cent. Famitsu awarded the Dreamcast version 30 out of 40 and the PlayStation version 23 out of 40. Several reviewers noted the game's difficulty, which could frustrate newcomers while rewarding anyone patient enough to learn its physics.
What awards and recognition did it earn?
The staff of PC Gamer US gave the PC version its 1999 Best Racing Game prize. Computer Gaming World named it a Sleeper Hit of the Year, saying it had surprised the staff when it arrived in the autumn of 1999.
It also reached the Racing Game of the Year shortlist at Computer Gaming World, where Need for Speed: High Stakes beat it. It was nominated for Best Arcade Game at CNET Gamecenter, which went to Rayman 2, and it was a runner-up for Best Graphics at GameSpot's Best and Worst of 1999 awards.
What is the legacy of Re-Volt?
Re-Volt lived on through its fans, who kept the PC version going long after Acclaim Entertainment became defunct in 2004. The community built new cars and courses, ran multiplayer servers and kept an active Discord hub for racing and mods.
The community project RVGL is a cross-platform rewrite of the game's source code that runs natively on Windows and Linux. An open-source chat and lobby client called RV House lets players connect online, and the community site chooses a monthly set of tracks for time trials. Fans also keep records of the fastest laps, and new courses and cars continue to appear.
Acclaim's own follow-up, RC Revenge, arrived in 2000 for PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Its alternate title, Re-Volt 2, linked it back to the original, while fans kept the first game alive in the meantime.