While I don’t often find an opportunity to use my Portuguese when it comes to gaming, I was happy to stumble across this arcade game that was made completely in Brazil back in 2005. It might be old news, but a piece of old news that wasn’t widely circulated could be new for some.
GP Brasil is among Brazil’s first arcade games that was developed completely in that country. The software was developed by students at the University of São Paulo and the cabinet manufactured by Matic Entretenimento. This is a racing game that at first appears to be a simulation style racer but the actual game was modeled around fast arcade style gameplay. The tracks themselves are based on real locations such as F1 racing tracks found in Curitiba and Interlagos Brazil, although the cars themselves are not F1 racing cars. The game features standard features you’ll find on an arcade racer, such as force feedback, pedals and a stick shift with the hardware being a Linux-based PC. While the primary product is a standard arcade cabinet, the group also developed a special Virtual Reality version of the game that made use of various projected screens and 3D glasses. It seems that the VR version was only available at the university and did not see a mass release. Overall the game received a great response at it’s release, and for a while it saw people lining up to play it.
Apparently the group is currently working on a second game entitled GP Brasil 2.0 although it is not going to be a sequel of the first game but something new (although obviously it will still be a racing game). No information about this second game is available at the moment, but once we find out we’ll be sure to report it.
Again this is another game that won’t likely see the light of day outside of it’s native country, but I think it’s still interesting to report anyways. If you visit Brazil, they do have some good arcade there in any major city, with many typical games you’ll find in an arcade in the US or Europe. Maybe you’ll run across GP Brasil 1.0.
