Rotorcross

Multirotors are quite the popular gadgets nowadays, especially since they can be produced at a fairly low cost. Drone technology made them that much more useful in a variety of fields, although hardcore fans would much rather prefer to be in control of everything. Thankfully, you can experiment with settings in a virtual environment and not risk wrecking your gear in the process.

Rotorcross aims to a realistic simulator in which players have the freedom to control multirotors and customize their properties just as they would with real ones. Although it lacks a couple of features at the moment and there are a few issues in regards to camera and controls, the game shows a lot of potential, especially since it is open source and anyone can contribute to the project.

As such, the game currently includes only a handful of levels and a multirotor that can be customized in a variety of ways, ranging from speed, to battery voltage and the size of the propellers. It would seem that everything is designed to come as close to the real world physics as possible, although only hardcore multicopter fans might be able to tell that.

To give you something to do after you manage to obtain the perfect settings, the game provides you with a few racing courses around the available levels. You can even include AI players in case you want a bit of competition, although you might have some issues keeping the vehicle steady along the way, just like in real life. However, it’s much more difficult to do with a keyboard than it is with a joystick.

Unfortunately, the game does not seem to support those yet, so you have to struggle with a keyboard. In fact, you can’t even use the mouse to look around, which is a major bummer, considering the high speeds at which you’ll be flying. The camera angles are terrible as well, not to mention the fact that the view moves way too slow to keep up with the multirotors.

In the end, Rotorcross could certainly turn into a much better product with a bit more work, but it’s not quite there yet. The physics seem to be in order, at least, which is the most important factor in a simulator such as this one.