A blog about my interests, mainly the history of fighting games. I also talk about animation, comic books, car culture, and art. Co-host of the Pink Monorail Podcast. Contributor to MiceChat, and Jim Hill Media. Former blogger on the old 1UP community site, and Capcom-Unity as well.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
Pole Position, released in 1982 is a legend to gamers. Those that
grew up in the arcade could never forget the intro music and line
"Prepare to qualify." If ever there was to be a hall of fame
for gaming then consider Pole Position to be the first racing game
inducted. It's bright graphics, large car sprites and demanding
control defined the first great attempt at making a modern racing
game. The billboards in Pole Position featured popular Namco
characters like Mappy and Pac Man, further ingraining itself onto our
young impressionable minds. It was so popular that it even spawned its
own Saturday
morning cartoon.
The original Pole Position earned many a fan but when the sequel came
out it really found its groove. Pole Position II introduced three new
tracks, one of which was based on my beloved hometown track of Long
Beach. The inclusion of Seaside won over a lot of the people in the
southland including my friends and brothers. Both versions of Pole
Position were very demanding. The cars were very delicate and the
slightest bump would cause them to explode. Like Monaco GP there was a
high and a low gear, nothing inbetween. High score runs required
amazing reflexes and solid racing strategies, making it a frustrating
at times but still a highly enjoyable experience.
Most racing game fans cut their teeth on Pole Position. They will
always have a soft spot for the title even with the age of the PS3 and
Xbox 360 racing juggernauts.
It comes down to more than
nostalgia as the game continues to find audiences with the Pole
Position Remix for the iPod / iPhone. I salute this arcade gem
for helping push the world toward more realistic racing games. However
the Formula-1 game that I played even more than Pole Position or Super
Monaco GP was the one that was least realistic. Come back next week to
find out what game that was! But be sure to come back tomorrow as I
have an extra special interview lined up for you.
Did you ever enjoy this classic arcade game, or did you play it on the home consoles? 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!
Japan never went through a hot rod renaissance, a whole DIY culture
built around hopping up pre-war iron. The topics I spoke of last week
with regards to hot rod culture, car caricatures and drag racing were
almost completely unknown in Japan. Auto racing they understood and
also arcade gaming. The combination of both made for a couple of the
greatest arcade titles ever, the Monaco racing series.
The original
Monaco GP released in 1980 was possibly the first racing game
that I remember being in color. It was also unique to me in how it
played and how the graphics were presented. The steering wheel and
pedals were similar to the earlier racing games from the US, but the
4-speed gear shift had been replaced by a 2-speed shift. Like other
Japanese racers people could move between low and high and high gear
and pray that nothing was in the way while in high gear. Most of the
Atari and Kee Games racing hits of the time were from a top down
perspective where players saw all of the track and controlled their
car as they drove around. Monaco GP continuously scrolled up where
paths and opponents would constantly be changing. This game also went
into tunnels where drivers could only see opponents that crossed in
front of the headlights. This added a very interesting dynamic to the
game. However as fun as this game was in the arcade, it was not an
accurate reflection of actual Formula-1 racing. This was Sega trying
to figure out what the whole racing genre was about, a decade later
they had just about perfected the template.
Super Monaco GP was the definitive racing game in the early 90's.
Sega capitalized on a great gaming engine and an even bigger name. Ayrton
Senna was the racing prodigy from Brazil. His name was growing by
leaps and bounds and was on the fast track to surpassing every major
sports star ever. He was a charismatic driver with an amazing ability
and a big heart. His life was about racing on the biggest stage and
fans adored him for it. Sega signed him to be the poster boy of Super
Monaco GP, the cap on their F-1 racing legacy. Whereas the original
Monaco GP played nothing at all like a real race the new title was
extremely accurate. The track was based on the real-world Monaco, one
of the most beautiful and challenging courses in the world.
The F-1 car is the pinnacle of racing machines, with a wide stance
and a low profile it is the jet fighter of the automobile world,
seemingly flying around the track and subjecting the driver to obscene
g-forces. If the F-1 is a jet fighter then the top fuel dragster is a
rocket ship. For only the dragster can claim to go any faster or push
the driver any harder... however that is only in a straight line. Most
racers around the world dream of competing on the global F-1 circuit.
To achieve a world wide celeb status rivaling any sports or Hollywood superstar.
Sega's new and improved cabinets for Super Monaco GP featured more
accurate steering wheels, gas and brake pedals. Where they were
superior to every other racer to-date was in the shifting department.
Gone was the unrealistic low and high gear from the early Japanese
games, gone was the clunky 4-speed from the American games. Super
Monaco GP had force feedback steering but that was not its major
advancement to the genre. It was the first arcade game to feature the
paddle-shifters. These were tabs located underneath the steering wheel
where drivers could shift gears by fingertip. Paddle shift technology
was just then being introduced into real F-1 racing and had become the
next evolution in transmissions. Today we can find paddle shifters on
several performance cars and daily drivers, but almost 20 years ago
this was cutting edge tech and only available on the most expensive
racing cars.
The new Super Monaco GP was also set in a cockpit view with a
rearview mirror and gages set up on the display. Races at this level
can sometimes come down to microseconds so all of the important
information had to be available on screen. The position for the grand
prix itself was even determined in qualifying, unlike other racing
games where you usually start dead-last. There was some repetitive AI
that could be exploited on the circuit but all-in-all this was an
amazing game that made a decent transition to the Genesis. This was
serious racing and despite the lack of polygon technology Sega managed
to capture the look and feel of Formula-1.
I remember visiting the arcade in the Lakewood mall over and over
trying to set new track times. There was a player that frequented it
also and we never crossed paths except for seeing our respective names
on the leader board. One day I was playing when the other person
happened to walk into the arcade. That day I did the impossible, I
qualified in the pole position using an automatic transmission. The
other player couldn't believe it, he'd never seen a qualifying time
that fast and in automatic, he asked if I was the NOE guy. I said
"yeah, you must be AARON." He nodded. He told me that I
really should switch to manual if I wanted to capture the top times.
The auto transmission option prevented players from reaching maximum
speeds in the game, it was a baby setting that I had grown
used to. Somehow I made it work as Aaron and I battled for the top
spot for months. It's a lot harder to beat the game with an automatic
transmission but I'd done it time and time again. When I finally got
used to the paddle shifter I became unstoppable on the game, pushing
myself and the car as hard as Senna seemed to do year after year.
My memories of the original Monaco GP and Super Monaco GP were
tempered by the untimely passing of Ayrton Senna. A few years after
the game's release he lost control in a race and hit a wall in San
Marino, dying on impact. I've never had a racing hero pass away doing
what he or she loved. I've seen them get wrecked, catch fire even, yet
always walk away. This was a grim reminder of the life they pursue and
the ultimate price for living on the edge each and every race. It
served to remind me of my own mortality. Someday I would pass on,
would I be remembered, and be loved for all-time like Senna or would I
fade away into obscurity? I grew up a lot in the mid-90's yet my
passion for car games never diminished. Tomorrow I'll look at the
game that got the entire planet into Formula-1 racing. Those that have
been around for a while should already know what it is. I hope to see
you back.
Did you have any favorite race drivers? Or did you ever follow Formula-1? 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!
NOTE: I have the original images for this blog, but I could not find the HTML files. So I'm rewriting it from memory. I hope you understand.
I am and have always been a HUGE fan of monster trucks. On this blog I've written extensively about my obsession with them, as well as a general history of the culture. You can read the posts below:
Naturally as a little kid I was drawn to every video game featuring those gigantic trucks, which back in the day were few and far between. To give you a sense as to how little there was for me to enjoy think of it this way. The very first monster truck I ever saw was Bigfoot the King of the Monster Trucks. It was featured in the 1981 film Take this Job, and Shove it. As many young boys could tell you the love was instant. I had never seen a truck as big, and as bad. Unless you were like me, and scouring the 4x4 magazines every month then you wouldn't see it in action again until the television show That's Incredible in 1983, and the movie Cannonball Run II in 1984.
Bigfoot created a new type of off road culture, and when racing against contemporaries like King Kong, and USA-1 had also created an entirely new form of motorsports. It started in the midwest in the late '70s, but would reach global popularity in less than a decade. Yet despite all this Bigfoot wouldn't appear in a video game until much later. I don't think you grasp how painful the wait was for me. I was in elementary school when I first saw Bigfoot, but wouldn't get to play a game featuring the truck until I started high school. When you are young this literally feels like a lifetime has passed. The Bigfoot game was developed by Acclaim Entertainment, and released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in July 1990. By then it seemed to be too little too late. Worse yet it was built on outdated technology. To put it in perspective the Sega Genesis 16-bit console came out in 1988, and the Super Nintendo would debut in November 1990. Games that were coming out for the 8-bit NES were less, and less notable.
Bigfoot on the NES turned out to be a popular, but ultimately a crappy game. I'm sure if it had come out four years sooner my opinion on it would have been different. The game was split between overhead, and side-scrolling racing. Careful timing of using boosts and weapons helped ensure a victory. I couldn't afford a copy as a kid. Thankfully I could rent it for a buck from the local video store. I got a chance to play it during a sleepover at my friend's house. He knew I was a huge fan of the truck, and made sure that it was one of the games we had rented for the weekend. I managed to destroy all of the levels with a little practice. Visually the game was nice, but limited. After playing for most of the evening I quickly grew bored of it, and looked for other challenges. I was glad I didn't buy it on day one. I might pick it up for much less today just to have it in my collection.
It would take a long time for a decent monster truck game to appear. The first one of any merit was Power Drive by Bally Midway. It was a mildly successful arcade game from 1987. There was actually one at my local bowling alley arcade. After playing it a few times I was disappointed in the execution of it. It showed how little developers knew about monster trucks, or how they could work in video game form. You could tell something was wrong with it by just looking at the cabinet. There was a gear shifter, and two buttons, but no steering wheel, or gas pedal to control the action. It wasn't like the technology to steer video game cars didn't exist. Atari had introduced that into arcades in 1974 with the game Gran Trak 10.
As with other Bally-Midway 84-86 arcade titles, Power Drive was designed to separate you from your quarters as fast as possible. You earned credits by winning competitions, but also had to spend credits paying entry fees, and fixing up your truck. So no matter how good you were you would eventually run out of money, and had to put in another quarter to continue. This game was just about pushing the buttons as fast as you could, and executing timed boosts. Sort of like Konami's classic Track and Field. Only this time you were crushing cars, instead of jumping over hurdles. Power Drive featured the staples of early monster truck competitions, these included car crushing, sled pulling, wheelies, and long-distance jumps. It was fun but you would wear out against the ruthless computer within a couple of rounds.
The thing I enjoyed the best were the graphics, and three playable monsters. There was a red corvette nicknamed Daddy's Girl, a yellow truck named Captain Crush, and a blue Jeep named Sheriff Perry. The computer controlled truck was called Black Lightning. They reflected the imagination that went into early monster trucks. They were all unique. In the early days there was no template to work from. The builders of the first generation of monster trucks were experimenting with different frames, engines, tires, and building techniques. No two looked alike, and I was grateful for their creativity. After the disappointment of Bigfoot I had just about given up hope that there would ever be a good monster truck video game. That literally changed one year later when an amazing game appeared out of nowhere. I'm going to talk about it in the next blog.
Were you ever let down by a video game you were waiting on? 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!
