Virtua Racing Demake is a PICO-8 powered demake of Sega’s iconic arcade racing game, with full 3D racing across two race tracks.
In Virtua Racing Demake you can jump behind the wheel of an F1 style racing car and hurtle around two classic Virtua Racing tracks. The game currently isn’t as fully featured as the original, but it does feature a checkpoint racing mode and three different camera angles to switch between (which was quite a big deal when Virtua Racing first released).
As a racing game, Virtua Racing Demake isn’t hugely impressive – it’s glitchy, hard to control and there’s no AI cars to race against (yet). However when you take into consideration that the whole thing is running on the PICO-8 fantasy console (which essentially has the limitations of an 8-bit system) then it’s a remarkable achievement. PICO-8 really shouldn’t be capable of running a fully 3D racing game, but somehow developer Frederic Souchu has managed it. A fun little slice of retro arcade racing and an incredible technical achievement.
Play The Virtual Racing Demake Tech Demo Here (Browser)