The new Spy Hunter, but not better than the old Spy Hunter - Originally published on 1UP - September 21, 2012

Hey friends, I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that Spy Hunter is returning. In case you are not old enough to remember the series I wrote about the importance of the title on my blog yesterday.

The first video was released yesterday showing off the iconic ride. Yet this new Interceptor is really lacking. It seems that the new developers are oblivious to the series and the legacy of Spy Hunter. We should start with the car itself. The Interceptor has always been and exotic white (or yellow as player 2 in Spy Hunter II) sports car. It has never been red until now. Mind you there was a blatant rip-off of Spy Hunter featuring a red sports car released by Sega called Action Fighter for the Master System. Yet Action Fighter was never revisited while Spy Hunter had returned time and time again over three decades.

The new Interceptor is sorely lacking. It looks like a sports car from today rather than some supercar from the future. This is important for Spy Hunter canon. The universe is very futuristic. It is laden with technology and gadgets that are better than anything we have today. The last good entries for the series were on the PS2 and Xbox but even those games were imperfect. The titles captured the feel of Spy Hunter but showed the limitations of the gameplay in 3D. In the arcade gamers could drive forever in a seemingly never-ending road. Weapons could be picked up along the way to be used against different types of opponents. Once the game had moved to 3D then levels became very linear, if a player missed too many objectives then the level was failed. This type of gameplay was very limiting. Players simply had to repeat the level again and again until they had memorized the patterns of the enemies and locations of the objectives. There was nothing remotely unique about multiple playthroughs.

Yet the world of Spy Hunter held tremendous potential. Although the 3D games were not well received it was not due to the car itself. Industrial design legend Scott Robertson lent his talents to the creation of the Interceptor and also ally and opposing vehicles and weapons in the last few 3D games.

Mr. Robertson helped developers envision a world where a supercar would be the perfect weapon against global terrorists. During his tenure he was tapped by Vivendi / Universal to design the vehicles and environments for a big budget Spy Hunter movie. Scott delivered and created some amazing concept illustrations that would have been the basis for the CGI vehicles in the film. Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson was cast as Alex Decker, the previously unnamed super spy driving the car. Dwayne actually injured his knee during production which stopped the project dead in its tracks. A game based on the film was released however, called Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run. Universal wrote the film off as a loss and eventually let the license slip to Time Warner.

Now the franchise is getting a new lease on life. Perhaps Time Warner thinks they can bring the franchise back to popularity and possibly get some momentum for an animated or live action film as well. Based on the footage shown so far it is not very impressive. The game seems to be falling into the same traps of the earlier Vivendi titles. Linear gameplay and timed missions. Worse, it is ignoring the futuristic designs that filled the series with tremendous eye candy.

The new Interceptor couldn't hold a candle to the previous entries, it looks too plain, too much like a street car trying to cash in on the name...

What do you think of the redesigned G-6155 Interceptor? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The little big world of RC Pro AM - Originally published on 1UP - March 24, 2009

RC Pro Am is the definitive combat racing game for those that grew up with the NES as their first console. Just ask my friend Jai about his experiences and memories of the game. For those that are unfamiliar with the Rare gem from 1988, it was an isometric racing game with weapons thrown into the mix. Unlike the Sprint series where players could see the entire track RC Pro Am would scroll across the track depending on the players position. This made guessing twists, turns and obstacles very hard. It was crucial for players to learn the course or at the very least keep an eye on the map to find their position. Of course while trying to race players also had to keep an eye on opponents and fight them off with an assortment of missiles.

The game was frenetic. The racing element was hard by itself, when combined with weapons then it became insane. Like many of the classic games it was the challenge that also made it memorable. If it were difficult because of the controls then it would have been forgotten. But the control was dialed in, the graphics were as good as any other NES racer if not better and the balance amazing. Rare had truly crafted a title that was head and shoulders above many combat racers of the day. RC Pro Am predated Atari's Badlands by two years and to many, if not all, it was a superior experience. I know my friends on 1UP have much love for this game. The isometric racer has rarely been done better since. Although the racing and combat genres have all gone 3D since every now and then we see some really fun isometric racers.

The spiritual successor to RC Pro Am was created by David Jaffe and the good folks at Eat Sleep Play (former Incog Inc. and SingleTrac employees). Calling All Cars was an isometric car combat game that owed a lot to Rare's influence. They ditched the track in favor of an open world environment where players tried to return escaped prisoners back to jail. Players could use weapons on each other in an attempt to steal the ragdoll-like prisoners. It was very fast-paced with point leaders changing pace from moment to moment. The cel-shaded graphics were a nice touch, helping keep the theme light and arcade-like. If you're on PSN then you owe it to yourself to check this game out. Just talking about it makes me want to go over the cousin's house for some more matches.

The spirit of RC Pro Am continues even in the Flash game market. RC Rally is a simple racing game, no weapons in the title, but the look of this isometric racer owes a lot to Pro Am. I tool around with the game from time to time at work and wish that perhaps some day Rare might think about resurrecting the game. Of course once weapons were added to cars things would never be the same. The light hearted feel of Pro Am would give way through the grim 90's. David Jaffe and his crew defined the genre years before Calling All Cars with a dark series that was a macabre comedy. You might have heard of it, it was called Twisted Metal.

Did you ever play a classic NES, PC, or arcade car combat game? I'd like to hear about it. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Spy Hunter, the original driving action shooter - Originally published on 1UP - March 26, 2009

If you were a serious gamer of the 80's then you know that Spy Hunter by Bally / Midway was possibly the best action driver the company has ever made. Released in 1983 the game has gone on to see countless releases on consoles, PC's and handheld systems. The arcade original is still possibly the best way the game should be played.

Spy Hunter broke the mold of the racing experience. It was a top-down driver, in the vein of the Sega's original Monaco GP but the similarities ended there. This game included weapons and a narrative. You were a spy making his way through hostile territory. Your car could gain special weapons to use against enemies, from smoke screens and oil slicks to machine guns and missiles. Each of these weapons would come in handy against certain enemies. Some opponents were heavily armored cars immune to bullets, they required drivers to shove them off the road, one of the harder enemies was a helicopter that could only be hit with missiles. The steering wheel found in most arcade racers had been replaced with something that looked more like a fighter plane control, with trigger and thumb buttons all used to fire the different weapons. The game also featured multi-path roads, some of which lead to rivers where the car would be switched out for a high-speed boat.

The entire experience was very reminiscent (read: lifted) from the famous Lotus Esprit chase in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. The sleek exotic car with hidden weapons and even the ability to turn into a submersible. I'm glad that the arcade experience focused on the car chase rather than the cheesy Roger Moore character. The game was very challenging. Very few people could get far enough into the game to try out all the weapons, let alone ever see the boat. All that experienced the game enjoyed the memorable theme, taken from the Peter Gunn television series. If you ask any arcade gamer about Spy Hunter then at the very least they should be able to hum the classic tune. A clever sense of nostalgia prompted Pontiac to create a commercial based on Spy Hunter.

Midway made sure the game was ported on multiple consoles and even followed up with a pinball release in 84. In 2001 they decided to relaunch the franchise and made an updated version of Spy Hunter for the Xbox and PS2. They added a more epic narrative and fleshed out the world of the G-6155 Interceptor. Creating a rival faction and a doomsday plot right out of a big budget motion picture to pull gamers through the experience. The release by developers Paradigm Entertainment was well-done. The classic elements featured in the original returned along with some updated elements. Rather than switch vehicles the new-and-improved Interceptor could transform on the fly and become a boat for river sections and turn into a motorcycle if it took too much damage. The pace was rapid and the game had a fun arcade quality to it.

The sequels to the new Spy Hunter didn't sit well with critics. Angel Studios took over for Paradigm and made a decent game with 2003's Spy Hunter 2. The Interceptor could now transform into other vehicles and even featured "boss" battles against massive vehicles. However by the time Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run came out the franchise went bust. The driver of the Interceptor, Alex Decker, was doing missions outside of the car in a loose GTA feel. The driving portions weren't as well made as the previous games. Players felt that the experience was lacking because Midway had broken up the game into two lacking experiences rather than one solid game. Most could tell that Midway wanted to turn the Spy Hunter game into a film franchise and were pushing the material into places that didn't suit it. The game worked when it was a car chase pulled from a spy film highlight. Not when it was trying to become the spy film itself.

This wouldn't be the first time that Midway had failed the IP. The arcade sequel, Spy Hunter II in 1987, was a disjointed experience. In an attempt to bring in more arcade players on a single machine Bally / Midway fit two steering wheels onto a cabinet and split the screen in half. While this cabinet worked well in Max RPM, it doomed Spy Hunter II. The view was behind the car rather than above and the roads featured a number of blind turns and difficult opponents. For a drag racing game the narrow view was perfect, but not in an action game. The magic of the original Spy Hunter was replaced with something akin to Mad Max. In theory a partner spy in a yellow interceptor could help you on the other side. Rarely did I ever see one, let alone two people, playing this game in the arcade. Just as they failed the franchise in Nowhere to Run Midway was overly ambitious in Spy Hunter II.

Spy Hunter will always be remembered as a top down driving experience that had no peer. But was it the best overhead action driver ever made? Could that genre be done better in an isometric view as RC Pro Am showed? That was a topic for debate. Next week we'll look at two console games that tried to beat the legends. 

Did you ever play this arcade legend? Or did you play the home console versions? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Sprint and the Isometric Racing Gems... - Originally published on 1UP - March 23, 2009

Kee Games and Atari had an interesting relationship while they were making some of the earliest racing games ever. The funny part being that in advertising they promoted themselves as rivals. One of Atari's most loved racing franchises was created under the Kee Games banner. The black and white game Sprint, released in 1976, was based on sprint car racing not Formula-1 as many now remember it.

Kee Games used the familiar 4-speed shifter from Drag Race and Superbug on this game. The entire track was visible on one screen and players had to navigate a car around the track while avoiding their rivals and random oil slicks. Unlike Monaco or Pole Position Eventually making 2 and 8-player cabinets for the arcade. Their most memorable (or finger breaking) contribution to the arcade racer was in the loose steering mechanism. The Sprint games have never been about realism. These games were unabashed arcade racers. In order to win players had to spin their steering wheels with reckless disregard for their opponents safety and mash the gas pedal all the way down. There was no force feedback, there were no discernible physics to the cars as they didn't drift or slide around turns, they held hard and turned as fast as the steering wheel allowed. It was absurd but it was also a lot of fun. 

Kee Games was absorbed back into Atari. Their arcade gem was updated and polished into, possibly, the craziest and most demanding racing game ever. The sprint cars were replaced with cars that looked more like Formula-1 or the American equivalent, the Indy car. Indy cars. Super Sprint was born in 1986, and the updated Championship Sprint followed right after. The game itself kept the classic experience intact. The entire track fit on one screen with an almost isometric-view. The steering was super loose. Cars bumped and jockeyed for position on each and every lap.

The tracks were possibly the most memorable element to the game. They were very imaginative and more akin to remote control car tracks than real Indy tracks. Some had shortcuts and jumps, all had oil slicks or tornadoes turn up to throw you off course. Wrenches that could be used to upgrade your car also popped up. The game had a very subtle difficulty curve. Players could dominate the computer opponents early on by skill alone. Along the way they could earn enough wrenches to upgrade their car in one of four categories including; turbo acceleration, traction and top speed. The thing was no matter how good of a driver you were it was only a matter of time before all of the rival cars had higher stats. Then you would have to begin pumping quarters into the machine to max out your stats and keep up with the rest. It was frenetic, it was difficult and it was damned addicting. By the mid-80's Atari and the rest of the publishers had figured out how to keep racers coming back.

Other isometric racers borrowing from the Super Sprint template would find similar success. Super Sprint set the bar very high on isometric racers. The racers featured on today's blog experimented with the formula and were hits or misses depending on your point of view. Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat by Leland was a revisionist take on Super Sprint. The tracks were hyper-detailed caricatures of real tracks and road courses from around North America, complete with crowds, pit crews and the atmosphere of real racing. Even my beloved Long Beach track was in the game. The cars could even take damage and begin smoking and burning as the race progressed, unlike the Super Sprint car which either exploded as it hit a wall or never really took damage. How could this game not be fun?

Despite the Indy name and look of the cars this was not a licensed Indy game as big money, and big egos, caused a number of team owners and drivers to start up a rival series. The Champ Car series was born from disputes with Indy organizers. Some of the most famous tracks went to one series after the split. Fans were keenly aware of this drama and while it didn't reflect in the quality of either Cart or Indy games it was an interesting footnote to history. As for this game it had a far steeper difficulty curve than Super Sprint. It was a shameless quarter waster where you could pump in quarters and maximize your car right off the bat. Not that it mattered because Danny Sullivan was a flawless racing driver and no matter how many turbos you bought and used he would always be right behind you.

It was the over reliance of the turbo which eventually did in the isometric racer. The skill of driving had been replaced by the cure-all of instant speed. The publishers were exploiting the purchase of upgrades and turbos with real money in an attempt to maximize profits, plain and simple. The precursor to Indy Heat actually managed to remain closer to the Super Sprint, at least in spirit. Off Road featuring Ivan "Ironman" Stewart was the last fun isometric arcade racer. Despite the format it played very much like Super Sprint. The difficulty curve was subtle and a good driver could get relatively far into the game before falling behind opponents with superior machines.

The physics in the game were very "arcade" as trucks bounced all over the tracks and slid on the soil. This game was a refreshing change of pace from Super Sprint as the courses were very imaginative and challenging, even to experienced race fans. The entire stadium "off road" feel was captured and synthesized as a worthy successor to the Atari game. However this game, like Indy Heat was by Leland. They cut their teeth on this game and noticed how the turbo could be exploited by players to get further into the game than just driving and tuning the off road truck could. They must have thought that the system of allowing players to buy upgrades with quarters, and especially turbos, was a godsend to the arcade. They exploited that concept to a much greater degree in Indy Heat. Sadly that strategy backfired in the arcades that I frequented. Players would tolerate the subtle quarter gobbler of Off Road because it offered a refreshing experience in return. They all avoided Indy Heat like the plague. By the time Atari got back into the isometric racer the tastes of gamers, and the market itself had changed. The consoles were taking over and the arcade scene was dying. Badlands, released in 1990 was a lamentable driver that pretty much buried the legacy of Super Sprint.

Atari tried to revitalize the genre by adding weapons to the mix. Adding weapons wasn't the lamentable part of this game. Using doctored up levels and recycled controls and sounds from Super Sprint was what did it in. The lack of evolution did nothing to gain the confidence of older gamers. Badlands was an even bigger pariah in the arcades than Indy Heat. The idea of combining weapons with racing was not all that new. In fact it was a great idea that has turned the racer into an a whole new experience. Come back tomorrow to reminisce with a title most of you know and love.

Did you ever play these isometric arcade gems? Or was there one on your phone, or home console that you enjoyed? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Max RPM, the end of drag racing - Originally published on 1UP - March 17, 2009

1986 was a good year for gaming, the arcade scene was still hot and the 8-bit consoles were just getting started. That year saw Max RPM by Bally / Midway as the last great arcade drag racing game. It's lineage can be traced back to the early days as it was the last notable racing game to use the traditional four speed stick shift like Superbug and Drag Race. Max RPM actually borrowed a little bit from both games and made something more unique. We can start with the graphics and presentation.

Notice the slobbering bug-eyed man on the logo. Does he remind you of the classic Ed "Newt" Newton Rat Fink art? Max RPM could be interpreted as a complete vision of those early arcade drag racing experiments. The industry would be able to improve the graphics from sprite-based cars and tracks to polygons, but to some like me, the charm was in the artistic interpretation of the cars and tracks themselves. 

The purpose of the game was broken over a series of races and venues all over the country. Some were traditional drag races set on a quarter-mile track, others were drags in the city or even the outskirts of town. Players had to watch their RPM's to gain the maximum speed while shifting. Unlike Drag Race there was no chance of blowing an engine. Players could collect bottles of nitrous oxide "nitro" scattered on the road to gain a speed advantage and also draft behind their opponent to gain additional speed.

City courses were littered with garbage cans, road pylons and other debris that could slow your car down. Unlike Superbug designers no longer had to label the obstacles, these rough patches were in color and could be avoided with some expert steering. The perspective was behind the car and was on a split screen with two sets of controls on one cabinet like the original Drag Race. 

The game was brutally hard as few players could manage to leave the car class and reach the dragster levels on one quarter. By 86 Bally / Midway had maximized their strategy for exploiting players. Games like Max RPM and Rampage seemed to have no end. The days would advance, levels would get harder and days would turn to nights, still there was no ending. Just a high score on the attract screen, virtual bragging rights. Damn them but it worked.

By the mid 80's real drag racing had changed from the sport I had grown up watching. The funny cars were all becoming homogenized, streamlined. Where we once used to see differences in the body shapes that mimicked the cars they were based on, we were beginning to see a universal wedge design. Worse yet, television stopped running most contests so I couldn't keep up with the advances in the dragsters either. Street racing was slowly picking up because the drag racing scene had been scaled back since the 70's. The reason was for safety concerns... or so we were told.

The energy that I talked about from the Irwindale Dragstrip used to be much closer. In Terminal Island, between Long Beach and San Pedro there used to be an amazing drag strip where people could race legally. It was shut down in 1984 and despite the best efforts from organizers and public demand it doesn't look like it will ever reopen. It seems that politics and greed will keep that land empty until the right business arrangement can be made. That is truly shameful.

Even if the drag strip were open when I was immersed in the arcade scene, I was still too young to participate. My parents might have driven me to watch the races but it wouldn't have been enough for me. The best I could do was get very much into the arcade versions and use my imagination. I was hooked on Max RPM for a long while. Fighting to get a good draft on my opponent or trying to shake him off if he was doing the drafting. Trying to memorize tracks and shifts, any detail that might have given me an advantage.

The graphics on drag racing games have improved since that time but the spirit is what is lacking. The creative spark that was hot rodding and became drag racing is hard to replicate. It is harder still to keep that spirit fresh and interesting to people that aren't die-hard racing fans. Sega created one of the early arcade experiences that approached racing with a fresh and unique perspective, completely different than the drag race experience. Their game eventually became a big-time, albeit short-lived series. Please come back to find out what game I'm referring to.

Did you ever see, or even play this arcade gem? I'd like to hear about it. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Almost Sega Good! - A 1UP classic from July 25, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen, Pardon the lateness of this entry (I usually have something posted before lunch). This time around I wanted to write a little bit about my hometown, the fine city of Long Beach California. There are plenty of places to write about, but I think fans of video games might like to learn a little bit more about downtown and a stretch of road called Shoreline Drive.

Back in the day Namco/Atari released Pole Position. One of the most famous CART-Champ Car tracks was titled Seaside. A not so subtle lift from the real track featured in the Long Beach Grand Prix.

There are many beautiful tracks all over the world, from Monaco to Mexico, Brazil to Japan. But of all the tracks ever put in a game, or raced in the real world, I'd dare say that Seaside Drive is almost SEGA good!

Almost SEGA good? What the heck does that mean?

SEGA arcade racers have always featured some of the most jaw-dropping visuals in any racing games. Even non race fans like my brothers were wowed by the creativity that went into the track designs in games like Daytona USA and Scud Race (SEGA GT).

Even if the track was an oval for example, the designers at SEGA AM2 wanted it to be memorable. In Daytona 2 the oval track was built indoors, with a nature preserve on the inside track and large sails blocking out the sun high overhead. A building like that would dwarf every other sport stadium. It would only work in a virtual world and I was grateful that SEGA always went that extra step making tracks memorable.

Scud Race had players drifting exotic supercars through tight city streets, Indiana-Jones style temples, under the ocean and through an airport! The best track in my opinion was the Medium Difficulty track on Daytona 2. Not only was the race course challenging but it was built, supposedly, in and around an amusment park. The finish line was directly underneath a dragon boat, part of the track went through a haunted mansion, another part through a smokey western town, then arctic village then through a suspended bridge that roller coasters twisted around.

The only arcade racer ever to come close was Hydro Thunder.

But I digress. This blog isn't about comparisons, at least not between arcade racers. This is about SEGA and the one race course that I think is almost SEGA good.

The main portion of the Long Beach track goes near downtown on Shorline Dr. There is a skyline and bridges to go under but many tracks real and virtual also have that. What makes Long Beach so special? Go further down Shorline and you'll go under a special bridge.

Wait a minute is that what I think it is?

We've all seen the ferris wheel in games like SEGA's Virtua Racing and even Sony's Gran Turismo. But is that? No, it couldn't be! A roller-coaster track on a bridge?! A roller-coaster track that Indy-cars get to race under?!

Looks pretty damn sweet, but alas it is just a sculpture that pays tribute to the amusment park that used to be located on Shoreline Dr. The Pike used to be a pretty rocking amusement park back in the day. It featured the Cyclone Racer, at the time the second-largest roller coaster in the USA, and built on a pier! From the late 70's to the 90's the Pike was taken apart and Shoreline Dr. was pretty bleak and empty. In recent years however the city has gone back and begun to restore some of the lost heratige.

Back to the subject at hand. The track at Long Beach! Just because the roller-coaster track isn't real doesn't mean we're out of eye-candy. While still racing on Shoreline Dr. we pass Rainbow Lagoon, a park where the famous Long Beach Jazz Festival happens every summer.

The Lagoon is in the shadow of a hotel and the artist Wyland's current largest mural Planet Ocean.

Pull a hairpin turn on Shoreline and head back the way you came. On the left you'll see the Pacific Ocean and the Queen Mary.

You'll also pass the massive bleachers of Grand Prix spectators. Go right next the the awesome Aquarium of the Pacific and even melt your brakes on the infamous turn 3 before getting back on Shoreline Drive

Even though the roller-coaster track on a bridge isn't real Long Beach still has one of the best race courses in the world! A course that is so awesome it defies tradition and is almost SEGA good!

Are you a fan of racing? Do you have a favorite track, or course? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Drag Race and the Super Bug... - Originally published on 1UP - March 16, 2009

Hello friends, today we'll begin looking at cars in video games. This series will not be a review of every major car game published. I will not talk about motorcycle or even flying car games like F-Zero and Wipeout because they don't meet my criteria. I will miss a lot of major players in the racing genre because of those limitations. Not every game will be about racing, some will be action / adventures, others puzzle games and a few will simply be about driving with no purpose in mind. This series will not move chronologically between the present and the past either. What I will do is try to deconstruct the origins and influences of car titles by finding relationships between them. I will share why these games were important to me. To let you know well in advance there are two titles that I will not mention in the entire series, so don't ask what happened to...

When it comes to cars in gaming I can be a little obsessive compulsive. Perhaps not as obsessive as the people that wrote about every VW Beetle in computer and video games but still pretty obsessive. Of course the same obsessive traits could be said about all my other hobbies. Everything that I am interested in says a little bit about me. If you see all of the things that interest me then you'll get a good idea of who I am. When it comes to racing games I am very particular. Only the best of most unique ideas can hold my attention. Those that get under my skin stay with me for years, or even decades. I talked about my appreciation of Sega's track design aesthetic it a long time ago with the blog Almost Sega good. Finally we'll get around to talking about the games these tracks belonged to.

The first two titles come from some of my earliest arcade memories. 1977's Drag Race and SuperBug by Atari and Kee Games respectively. I was barely three-years-old when these games came out. Thankfully like a lot of arcades the late 70's and early 80's was a transition period. The last of the great pinball machines were slowly being weaned out by first generation of videogames. I was fortunate enough to enjoy the best of both worlds during my formative years. By the time I was able to understand the controls of Drag Race it too was being replaced by newer games. However my love of cars blended with this new form of entertainment and I was hooked from then on.

Arcade cabinets were very gimmicky in the early days. Bright colors and unique layouts helped differentiate them from the crowd. Drag Race was one of those cabinets that immediately caught my eye. It had a split screen, in (limited) color, when so many other games were still in black and white. Two sets of steering wheels, gas pedals and a gearshift as well. This was an electronic version of one of my favorite forms of racing, this was the future!

Drag racing has its roots in hot rod culture. For as long as people have had cars they've wanted to go fast. As a kid my obsession was highlighted in the televised rivalries of people like Don "the Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen. I was taught to respect women as Shirley Muldowney and her pink dragster put up awesome races against the legend Don Garlits. My collection of Hot Wheels grew exponentially to reflect this newfound love of drag racing.

The magic of the Atari game was in the balancing of all the dragster components. Keeping a careful eye on the RPM's, knowing when to shift and how much gas to give the dragster. Push the pedal too hard or miss a shift and you would get a blown engine. Avoiding the walls through touchy steering also kept arcade players on edge and the races close. This game, like the sport, wasn't for everyone. Often times I would find it alone in the arcade. Atari like the rest of the industry were experimenting will all sorts of arcade games. Experimenting with control schemes and features just to get players interested. While Drag Race was a niche game in a (then) niche part of the entertainment industry, the idea of shifting gears and combining with a gas pedal was a welcome advancement.

Kee Games came out with a racing game called Super Bug that same year. It used a similar gear shift setup but this was more of a road racing experience. Even as a kid I found it funny that oil slicks and sand were clearly marked in the game. Although the game was in black and white it seemed to attract more players than Drag Race. In addition to driving and racing I was attracted to the cabinets because of the bright graphics. Early arcade cabinets had to compete for attention against the better painted and better illustrated pinball machines. The in-game graphics of arcade machines weren't doing the job so designers had to sell the game with good art. The most memorable cabinet illustrations sold us on a theme or plot. The illustration on Drag Race was very colorful, it had a lot of late 70's / early 80's design aesthetics going for it, helping it stand out from the crowd.

I never thought I'd live to see the day that the in-game graphics were as good or better than the cabinet art. Those days eventually came but there is something to admire in classic arcade cabinet art. The mascot character for the Superbug looked very much like a Dave Deal illustration. Of course I wouldn't learn about Deal until much later, but as a kid I loved the exaggerated proportions on those cartoon cars.

While they lasted in the local arcade I managed to enjoy them immensely. Unfortunately both games didn't remain too long in the arcade as the next round of driving and racing titles were coming in. So where did the legacy of those early driving experiences of Superbug and Drag Race lead to? Come back tomorrow to find out.

Did you ever play any of the first generation of arcade racing games? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!