Action’s Beach Buggy
Back from my trip to Wacken Open Air at least. Had a blast the past days irl.
Anyway, a day or two before the trip I was visiting the stores on my list of places to go to, and one of them was Action Surf & Skate – a skate and surf store (they also have a blog where they mention new releases).
I was looking for a surfing board, but noticed they’re currently beta testing their new system – so I settled for a beach buggy instead and figured I’ll get the boards later on once the new system is available.
I bought the red beach buggy, which is available for 1299 L$ outside their store (SLUrl). I saw 7 models in total being displayed. They range from bright camo, to monochrome, to even a pink hello kitty buggy. As far as looks go, suspension height is customisable through a menu, front and back separately. Outside of that, what you see is what you get.
Complimenting the great looks of the buggy are the animations of driver and passenger. The picture on the left is with only a driver in the car since there wasn’t anyone else around the island when I decided to write this post. Both animations are pretty relaxed. The driver is sitting back with one hand on the steering wheel, while the passenger will lie in the seat, leaving his right leg dangling over the passenger door. Looks great for a casual ride over the beach with a friend to scope out the waves and the chicks.
The looks are only one part of a vehicle though. The behaviour of the vehicle is another part, and quite important. I have to say this vehicle is not my favourite to actually drive in. The buggy comes with two pre-sets: race and drift. Race seems to be made for long, straight roads since you barely seem to turn at all, no matter how much you hold the directional arrows. Drift on the other hand makes it seem like you’re driving around on an ice skating ring covered in green soap – the slightest tap to the directional arrows makes you spin several 360s in a row. I personally find both pre-sets a little extreme to use out of the box.
Luckily you can customise this driving behaviour. Down force and Turning speed are the two options you can change, both having 6 steps. Using trial and error I decided after a while that race mode with the turning speed increased made for a relatively fun driving experience.
You can also shift the forward speed through 13 gears. Any gear above 1 I only used once – for the sake of science. Gear 1 was more than fast enough to drive around our OpenSpace sim and go from one sim border to the next in a matter of seconds. Gear 13 I can only describe as FTL.
Last but not least, the sounds. The engine sounds very good to me, and so does the rev option in the menu. The chirping brake sounds make me think of driving on asphalt however. Sure it’s impossible to detect the material you’re driving on in Second Life, but since it’s a beach buggy I figured an asphalt driving sound might not be the most suited.
As for my global opinion on the buggy now. I’m happy I bought it. I think it’s a great item to show off on our beach since all our visitors so far liked it. It looks -very- good after all. After you customise the behaviour a bit it also becomes fun to ride around in or let your guests drive, in unlocked mode anyone can drive it without limits. Lastly, the price is also very fair for a vehicle. If I look at the price of my motorbike and my old car, this buggy costs about 1/3rd to 1/4th of those.
Definitely a fun addition if you own a beach and enjoy the surfing world.
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