Tag Archives: racing games

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Fast Lane

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The “sim racer” has very much become its own distinct thing over the course of the last 20 years or so.

Back in the 16-bit home computer era, the lines between arcade racers and more simulation-like affairs were a little more blurred thanks to the limitations of the technology of the time. And that’s where games like Fast Lane come in, combining old-school “vanishing point” racing with an arcade feel and more simulation-style aspects such as damage, wear and tear and realistic pit stops.

Praised by several publications around the time of its original release, Fast Lane holds up surprisingly well today… although its lack of save functionality means you’d better set a whole day aside if you want to run that whole championship!

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Essentials, Racers

Wreckfest: This One’s A Right Banger

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I’ve been following Wreckfest on and off for what feels like a very long time now.

Originally announced by Finnish developer Bugbear (creators of the vastly underappreciated Ridge Racer Unbounded) as Next Car Game back in 2013, Wreckfest was designed as a spiritual successor to the company’s cult hit FlatOut series, as well as a natural evolution of older titles such as Psygnosis’ Destruction Derby series, popularised in the PS1 era, and the even more venerable home computer title Street Rod from Logical Design Works and California Dreams.

After more than four years of early access on Windows PC and another year of getting the console versions up to snuff, Wreckfest is now available in all its glory for home computers, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. So let’s get our hands dirty!

Continue reading Wreckfest: This One’s A Right Banger →

Essentials, Racers

Racer Essentials: S.T.U.N. Runner

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After checking out the not-very-good-but-I-still-like-it Atari ST version on Atari A to Z earlier this week, I thought it was worth taking a closer look at the arcade original of S.T.U.N. Runner.

It’s an interesting game, for sure; although Sega is widely credited with popularising the polygonal racer in arcades thanks to its excellent Virtua Racing, Atari Games had actually been experimenting with filled 3D racers for some years previously.

Probably the most well-known of these is Hard Drivin’, a game that took itself a little too seriously — to date it’s still the only arcade racer I know of with a clutch pedal — but the futuristic bobsled run that is S.T.U.N. Runner was also innovative in its own way.

Continue reading Racer Essentials: S.T.U.N. Runner →

Videos

Atari ST A to Z: S.T.U.N. Runner

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The futuristic racer subgenre tends to mostly be attributed to Nintendo’s F-Zero series these days, but there were a number of other companies experimenting with the formula too.

One such company was Atari Games, who put out the arcade version of S.T.U.N. Runner in 1989, a good year before F-Zero hit the Super NES. Running on a variation of the Hard Drivin’ hardware, its polygonal graphics and blistering speed impressed anyone who was lucky to come across a machine.

Its home ports… well, they did their best, and despite the ST version being what can politely be called “barely passable” I had a surprising amount of fun with it…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Podcast

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 26 – Vanishing Point

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Humblest greetings to you, Internet denizen, and a hearty welcome to another episode of The MoeGamer Podcast, featuring my good self and a spicy pepper-chomping Mr Chris Caskie of MrGilderPixels.

The MoeGamer Podcast is available in several places. You can subscribe to my channel on YouTube to stay up to date with both the video versions of the podcast and my weekly videos (including the Atari A to Z retro gaming series); you can follow on Soundcloud for the audio-only version of the podcast; you can subscribe via RSS to get the audio-only version of the podcast in your favourite podcast app; or you can subscribe via iTunes. Please do at least one of these if you can; it really helps us out!

Or you can hit the jump to watch or listen to today’s episode right here on MoeGamer.

Continue reading The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 26 – Vanishing Point →

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Super Bug

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While a bit different from what we know today as the “arcade racer”, Atari’s early attempts in this regard were all rather enjoyable.

Of the three included in the Atari Flashback Classics collection, Super Bug was the earliest and, consequently, the simplest. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time, however — if anything it makes it a great place to start!

Drive until you can’t drive any more: that’s all you need to do. But as we’ve seen countless times on this series already, sometimes it’s the simplest concepts that make for the most addictive games…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Essentials, Racers, Sega Ages

Sega Ages: OutRun – Chasing the Horizon

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Trivia of the day: the shiny red car in the original OutRun is not, as many people assume (and as both numerous sites on the Internet and some incarnations of the game’s original manual claim), a Ferrari Testarossa; it’s just a car designed to look uncannily like a Ferrari Testarossa — in other words, it’s a thoroughly unlicensed knockoff.

The fact that the car in OutRun is almost-but-not-quite a Ferrari is probably why this first game in the series has been so widely ported and still remains relevant today, while the officially Ferrari-branded OutRun 2 and its expanded quasi-sequel OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast remain tragically trapped in licensing limbo.

The original OutRun has been ported to enough platforms to make the original Final Fantasy and Ys games blush over the years, as well as putting in occasional guest appearances in games such as Shenmue 2 and Yakuza 0. The latest direct port at the time of writing is for Nintendo Switch as part of the Sega Ages collection and is the work of emulation maestros M2, so let’s once again put our foot to the floor and get driving.

Continue reading Sega Ages: OutRun – Chasing the Horizon →

Essentials, Racers, Sega Ages

Sega Ages: Virtua Racing – Arcade Perfect Plus

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The Nintendo Switch has seen a real renaissance for classic-era Sega.

The launch of the Sega Ages collection on the platform has brought a host of the company’s most beloved titles to a whole new audience. Even better, these releases have brought these titles up to date with modern conveniences without sacrificing what made the originals great in the first place; a true example of “enhanced retro” at work.

The latest title from Sega’s golden age to get this treatment is Virtua Racing, so let’s take a look at where this influential title came from… and how the Nintendo Switch incarnation honours its legacy.

Continue reading Sega Ages: Virtua Racing – Arcade Perfect Plus →

Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Monte Carlo

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Say the words “racing game” to someone these days and they’ll typically think of a game with at least a passing impression of a 3D perspective.

Prior to titles like Namco’s Pole Position and Sega’s Out Run popularising this viewpoint, however, Atari was happily churning out top-down racers that were a lot of fun to play, beginning with Super Bug before moving on to the unusual cooperative two-player title Fire Truck — which we’ve previously seen on this series — and finally, the full-colour, multi-track Monte Carlo, which saw players racing against actual opponents as well as the course itself.

Like Atari’s other early racers, it’s a game that’s actually still a lot of fun to play today once you get used to how the control scheme maps to modern controllers — and, for me, one of the many highlights in the Atari Flashback Classics collection.

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Days of Thunder

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In the 8- and 16-bit home computer era, movie license games were typically developed either as platform games with a tenuous link to the movie in question, or some sort of minigame compilation, with each major scene from the movie being represented as some sort of interactive challenge.

Mindscape’s Days of Thunder was different. Here was a game that took the basic concept of the movie and simply used it as a basis to create a fully fleshed out experience — one that complemented rather than attempted to imitate the original work. The subject matter — motorsport — was ideal for such a treatment, and, on paper, Days of Thunder was a great idea.

Sadly, less than stellar performance meant that the game wasn’t as good as it could have been — a lack of speed and responsiveness in a racing game is a bit of an issue! — but it remains an interesting proof of concept as well as an intriguing anomaly that broke with the conventions and norms of the time. So I salute the effort involved, if not necessarily the final product we ended up with!

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.