KJ Racing: Where To Host Your Next Company Party

by Kavella Maa | January 20, 2010 | No comments

So I’ve been complaining a lot lately. Complaining all the time is a bummer. Let’s do something fun today instead.

Today we’ll pay a visit to KJ Racing.

KJ Racing is not your usual Second Life location. Yes, there’s a dance floor, there’s Zyngo, there’s a shopping mall, but that’s not why you go there. Not unless you’re the sort of tourist who visits Disney Land to buy T-shirts, or spends a week in the French Quarter and only eats hot wings. I mean, you’re ignoring the main attractions here.

What KJ Racing is, is a fun park. A huge fun park. And you can guess from its title what its main attraction is.

When you teleport in, put the Stargate at your back (yes! another sim with a Stargate!) and turn left on the main pathway. Just after the “Sim Crossing” warning sign, you’ll come underneath the biggest of the race tracks. Go up either stair, use the car rezzer to get equipped, sit in the car, and get in the race! The local chat channel will spit out your stats each time you clear a lap.

Seriously, loads of fun. So, remember that time your workplace had a company party at the local go-kart-and-crazy-golf park? And you spent hours racing around the track and running the Vice-CEO into the tires? Good times, man, good times.

There’s also two different remote-control race tracks. Use the teleporter beside the Stargate (squee! Stargate!) to go to either the “RC Karts” or the “RC Cars.” Each is about the same: sit in the chair (which tosses you up into eagle’s-eye view), tell the blue dialogue box yes, and start driving your little car around the track.

I only experienced a little bit in the way of glitch. On the big track, I found that my car went faster than the track objects loaded in my SL viewer, so sometimes I couldn’t figure out why I was stuck until the wall-bumper finally appeared on my screen. This may or may not be mitigated on a newer computer.

As for the remote-control races, the “RC Cars” (the two-car race) had a serious issue where you can accidentally jump the track and land outside the race area. You’ll never be able to get the car back inside. Worse, you’re still connected to the car–you can “Stand Up,” but other than that, your avatar won’t move until, I suppose, the Kar de-rezzes. Instead, your desperate attempts to walk, dammit, walk! are causing your Kar to trundling about in the snow and running into shop walls. (No, the “Stop Animating My Avatar” command didn’t help.)

At this point I sat down again and rezzed a new car and played with it for awhile. Then I teleported home and came back–only to find my avatar still unresponsive to any command except “fly” and “stop flying” while somewhere on the parcel a tiny toy car was furiously headbutting a snowman. I had to teleport away and stay away for a good 10 minutes before it was safe to come back.

Anyway. On to the next attraction.

The teleporter menu also lists “Bump cars,” “Rock Cafe,” “Ferris Wheel,” and “Ice Skate.” The bumper cars and the ice skating rink are awesome. I’m going to hold onto my free skates package and wear them while wandering around random sims; the animation is just that fun. The ferris wheel and other assorted carnival rides are kind of cool, but it’s one experience that sadly doesn’t translate well to Second Life. The rock cafe is well furnished both inside and out, boasting dart boards and billiards and plenty of bar seating, but for all that the notecard advertises classic rock, the background stream plays dance, pop, and hip-hop.

And there are games. At the landing point, with the Stargate at your back (squee!), walk to the right along the path. As the skating rink comes up on your right, there will be games on your left. Giant checkers, chess, and Parcheesi. Air hockey. Fishing. A coin-op arcade (but it’s all free) with Skee-ball, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution clones. These don’t really translate from real life either, but their Second Life counterparts are surprisingly addictive.

And when you’re tired of competitive-style fun, head across the table games area towards the RC Cars track and chill out on the playground. It is amazingly restful to hang around the swings or just indulge in the “Splash” animation over at the kiddie pool. (Look for the big picture of Eeyore.)

KJ Racing is one of the few Second Life locations I know of where I could happily spend hours on my own without feeling like I’m just clicking buttons to avoid getting work done. There’s so much fun stuff here, and I’ve only listed the obvious things. Grab some friends and go explore it.