Beregis Avtomobilya!

Beregis Avtomobilya!, whose Russian title is Берегись автомобиля!, is a racing game from Amber for PC, released in 1998. The preserved DOS copy is in Russian. It lets you drive from an interior view, with the dashboard in front of you and a small rearview mirror at the top right. Here you can enter the training mode and drive the car with the keyboard arrow keys.

The cars are the heart of the game. The box presents Russian-made vehicles against foreign cars and advertises ten models and nine summer and winter tracks. On screen, the road takes up a good part of the view. The steering wheel sits outside the initial frame, while the instruments show the RPM, the speed, and a clock.

Recognizing the Russian menus

The first screen lets you choose a name. Then the main menu appears, laid over a photograph of a car. The word Гонка opens the races. Результаты leads to the results and Настройки to the settings. There is also a movie option and another to exit. The gallery preserves the look of this menu so you can find the options before you start.

Inside Гонка you will find the car and track choices, the parameters, and the game modes. Машина means the car and Трасса the track. To try out the controls you can use Тренировка, the training mode. It is the fourth entry in that second menu. The game shown in the screenshots begins with the choices the installation offers.

These words help you find your way while the Cyrillic alphabet is still hard to read. Entering Настройки lets you see the graphics settings and the control device. The configuration tested uses the keyboard. The game keeps its original labels, which also appear in the instructions on this game page.

The first few meters

Once the track has loaded, hold the up arrow to accelerate. The tachometer and speedometer respond as the stretch of road ahead of you changes. The left and right arrows steer the car. Down lets you slow down. In testing, we checked forward movement, a turn to the left, and braking.

It is best to start with gentle presses. The dashboard occupies the top strip and leaves a wide view of the curves, the shoulder, and the terrain. If the car ends up off the asphalt, its position is visible both in the front view and in the rearview mirror. Releasing the accelerator and correcting little by little makes it easier to recognize the direction of the road again.

Training lets you observe that response before choosing a race. On the tested route, trees, slopes, and houses appear beside the road. The opening screenshot and the driving ones come from actions performed with the keyboard. The stopwatch and the instruments stay visible throughout the drive.

A DOS game from 1998

The program belongs to a late stage of the DOS catalog. Its original installer creates a game folder on the hard drive and keeps the main data on the CD drive. The browser setup reproduces that arrangement. That way the official launcher finds both the game's resources and the local configuration files.

The copy includes eighteen original files. The main data file is called netracer.all. The executable and the launcher generated by the installation identify the Russian version from June 1998. The download keeps the collection's ZIP intact. The package used for playing adds the DOS configuration and the files created by the original installer.

The cover and its back identify the company Amber. The name Watcom that appeared in the collection's data belongs to the programming tools included in the executable. This game page lists Amber as the developer and uses the year confirmed by the box and the program files.

The background comes from the main menu of this same copy. The other images show the race menu, the training mode, and the settings. You can compare the labels in the gallery with those that appear when you open the player and follow the first steps without changing the program's language.