Second Life Racing: Midgets, Virtual Supercars, and Atrocious Game Play

Recently, I came across a Sportbike and Formula1 racing trend in Second Life. The experience for me was something less than exciting… and perhaps a little depraved. I had no idea that SL had cars, let alone racing circuits.

The first SL race track that I competed on was entirely in Italian, so I kinda blew it off as merely an activity only Italians do due to their apparent predisposition to fast cars.

But after a bit of link-hopping I found that this trend is more widespread than I originally assumed. There’s even a midget racing circuit.

Naturally, a race wouldn’t be complete without SL’s news and TV organizations providing video coverage of tournament SLASCAR races.

What’s really cool, the Second Life members that set up the tournaments and make the cars are even making a little money. Drivers wishing to race in the RaceSL circuit can buy a car and register a team for 6,500 Linden dollars. That’s about twenty-five dollars, depending on the exchange rate on any given day.

RaceSL tournament providers also have paid sponsors and registered teams are encouraged to get team sponsors in order, to offset the “cost of vehicle and race gear creation.” Racers can even win cash prizes denominated in Linden dollars.

Flatly, I’m amazed at the versatility of SL overall. To have a virtual world that can handle flying characters, as visibly diverse as the human population (even deities- see below), while still enabling its members to drive, as well as create, motorbikes is truly impressive.

Sadly, as with the real world, being a jack of all trades means SL is a master of none. The vehicle physics are horrendous. The cars and bikes basically move around like cardboard boxes.

And the graphics are even worse. To say they are sub-par compared to current PC racing sims, would be generous. I’ve seen better looking Atari games.

I’m sure, to Second Lifers, graphics and physics are not really the point, but it does dissuade me from signing into my old SL account to buy my own RaceSL car when there are dozens of different racing sims that offer infinitely superior game play.

All of that aside, I honestly couldn’t stop laughing. I’m a fairly open-minded guy. I don’t care what you do for fun, and you gotta know I’m a geek a heart. But listening to the announcer give the play-by-play of a not real race just seemed awesomely stupid. I’m looking at the weird animal mask that is commenting screen, listening to this guy talk, and thinking, “Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, is some guy sitting at his computer, talking to into his mic, and actually getting a thrill out of covering this faux event.”

It seems sad to me. It’s like he’s living out his failed dreams. Then again, I just don’t get it. And that’s why I’m not on Second Life.

My experience with Second Life was less than thrilling. I downloaded the program, signed up for an account, and spent hours creating a character to look as close as possible to Jesus. Then I flew around until I found some random empty house and got the Almighty to bump and grind on nothing. I have to say, I did move away from my computer a little. If I was gonna get struck by lightning, I didn’t want to lose all my data in the process.

I’d rather be throwing my 360 controller, cursing at other Project Gotham players for cheating, and blaming my less-than-first-place position on lag and frame rate issues.