Flipping, firing, wall-climbing action is just a keystroke away. The latest role-playing game? Nah. An action-adventure program. Not really. A first-person shooter? Yes and no to that one.

It’s DeathTrack Racing, an arcade racing game from publisher Take-Two. This is a game of two names – the one on the box, and the name it installs under, Rollcage Stage 2. That aside, this 3D race program is rich with options, features solid graphical elements, and is packed with high-flying, arsenal-packed racing vehicles.

First, the vehicles: Independent suspension takes on a whole new meaning with these racing machines. Get too close to a banked wall and you may find the wheels on one side cantered up and angled back toward your vehicle. And zipping down the course at speeds in excess of 700 miles per hour allows you to walk those walls like they were level track, or launch your vehicle through free space to land back on the course some distance off.

In true arcade fashion, you accrue weapons by running through glowing images on the course. Weaponry includes mini rockets, a chain gun, laser blades (turns opponent’s tires to ice), driller rocket, leader missile, time warp (affects speed of opponents), wormhole (puts you in front of the vehicle in front of you), radius bomb, a shield, tazer ram (your car is enveloped in lightning for ramming other vehicles), stasis beam (blows opponents into the air and places them in stasis), and the turbo (incredible speed burst).

There are 20 vehicles in all – which resemble radio-controlled stunt vehicles, the ones that can flip all over the place and don’t seem to have a right-side up – and more than 60 tracks. You can participate in 16 modes, including time attack, training, campaign or even a soccer-type competition. There are two campaign modes: Total Racing and Classic Racing. In Total Racing, you use weapons and fast lap times to post a score. In Classic Racing, you compete with the idea of posting the best times to earn bonus awards – which can be a better car than the one you began with.

Graphically the program features well-rendered courses with lush coloring. The tunnels are awash in blue, red and amber, the sky seems to always be around sunset, or sunrise, and the buildings are encased in blue shadows. Little will distract you from your course. The vehicles are also well-done, except in the tire area. The tires are two dimensional and look soft (as in, not in complete focus) when standing still. With the exception of a few effects, like the sparks flying off walls when you crunch into them at the wrong angle, special elements are nicely done – especially that massive skid mark at the checkered zone when you decelerate from 400-plus miles an hour to zero in seconds.

The sound is redundant, consisting mostly of the same music track and revving engines. But that can easily be overlooked in the excitement of battle. The controls are easy to understand and master, making this program the kind that will appeal to racing fans of all ages.

There was a problem during installation of the game. Booting it first on a Pentium III 800 MHz with a DDR GeForce 2 card didn’t work. The game went through the intro video and then kept quitting back to Windows. The program was then installed on a Pentium 200 with a Voodoo 1 chipset (the minimum system requirements ask for a Pentium II 233), and worked fine. Though not one of the better racing games recently released (a hat would have to be tipped in the direction of Infogrames Michelin Rally Masters for a jostling good time), this program is nonetheless a pleasant diversion.

Death Track Racing is rated for Everyone and supports up to five players in a multiplayer mode accessible through TCP/IP, IPX, serial cable or modem.

Install: Easy. The game only requires 50 megs of hard drive space at the minimum install, 200 for the full install.

Gameplay: 8.5. The action is fast-paced through a myriad of bright and colorful tracks. Skid marks look very good, and the game zooms smoothly through each course.

Graphics: 7.5. The game requires a 3D card for rendering its graphics, and does an excellent job on the tracks. If there is a failing, it occurs in the vehicles. The tires are softly focused and when the vehicle rams a wall – one it can’t climb – then there is some tendency for the wheels to disappear into the wall, almost as though the clipping was turned off. The spark effects, either in ramming a wall or flipping end-over-end, are also not very well rendered.

Sound: 6.5. After you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it all. The same music, revving engines and weapon or boost sounds. There is a definite lack of variety here.

Difficulty: 7. Steering is simple, as is navigating the courses. This program does not present a huge challenge, except if your speed is a little too high, or – as in the case of jumps – not high enough to negotiate the obstacles.

Concept: 7.5. This program is a nice little combination of harmless blast ’em action and vehicles that have no undercarriage of hood, but which resemble radio-controlled stunt vehicles.

Overall: 7. This is the type of program that will appeal to a wide age range because of the action, the high-speed leaps and rolls, and the easy way you can just jump in and play. The controls are not hard to master; it is only the obstacles and other drivers that present the hardest portion of this program. It is enjoyable.