Games Corner

The beetle, in both its air cooled and water cooled incarnations has hit the gaming scene with two more games, the first, Ignition from Virgin Interactive has been around for a year, the second Midtown Madness is just out, published by none after than Microsoft. Both are for the PCs running Windows.

Ignition

Across exotic countries and around some pretty punishing racetracks you have to conquer the other vehicles and use your nitrous to sprint to the finishing line. You must use all means at your disposal to win - if that means ramming someone off a cliff then so be it - they shouldn't have got in your way.
The beetle makes a authentic bug beep when it goes into nitro and even sports that little polystyrene ball atop its aerial. This is a fun alternative to the more serious rally games and if you've ever wanted to ram another car off the road - its ideal.

Midtown Madness

The second game is Midtown Madness re-creates manic city driving. Set in Chicago, you can dodge in amongst rush-hour traffic and run red lights. Head the wrong way down a one-way street. Watch cars swerve to avoid you. Take a shortcut through the park and people leap out of the way, no-one is killed (this is Microsoft here) but its fun all the same. But watch out for the cops and remember this is America so drive on the left, or not if you like. The game includes features like Sunday drivers but in this games you can always ram them off the road. Ideal to get rid of ant road rage you might have but don’t try this on the real road.

You can drive a variety of vehicles, there is an agreement with Ford to add some of their cars but VW got there first, for most club members this may be your only chance to roll the New Beetle (see screenshot), and like real life there's no right hand drive version out yet.