Tag Archives: vanishing point racers

Super Hang-On and its two very different ways to play

I must confess, I never played Hang-On or Super Hang-On a great deal back in the day; I always found motorcycles a little less interesting than cars, and the games always struck me as “the Sega racers that weren’t quite as good as OutRun”.

I recently picked up Super Hang-On for Mega Drive, though, and after an evening of playing pretty solidly, it was hard not to come to the conclusion that I’ve been missing out for all these years.

This is an excellent 16-bit racer, particularly in its home console incarnation, and I’m very glad I’ve finally added it to my collection.

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Atari ST A to Z: Vroom

It may have a ridiculous name, but if you ask any ST enthusiast what the best racing games on the platform are — hell, if you ask them what the best games on the platform are — you will almost certainly hear Vroom mentioned.

Developed by Lankhor, this is a high-speed first-person racer that effortlessly blends smooth scaling sprites with polygonal scenery to produce one of the most thrilling games on Atari ST. It was so good, in fact, that publisher Domark went and sorted out a Formula 1 license and then released an updated version called F1 a little while later!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Evercade A to Z: Checkered Flag

Every gaming platform worth its salt needs at least one great racing game to keep the petrolheads amused. And in the case of the Atari Lynx, that role was very capably fulfilled by Checkered Flag.

The game is a challenging “vanishing point” racer that offers a wide selection of tracks and options to customise your experience, plus a great showcase of the Lynx’s hardware scaling capabilities. Plus you get a big ol’ snog from a hottie (male or female, depending on preference) in a swimsuit if you win. And now you can enjoy it as part of the Atari Lynx Collection 2 for the Evercade!

Check it out in the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

MotorPsycho: The 7800’s Best Motorcycle Racing Game

When contemplating video games from years gone by, it’s all too easy to focus exclusively on the “classics” — those defining experiences that went on to have a huge amount of influence on everything that came afterwards.

But the highly influential and historically significant nature of these games means that, by this point in time, most of the things which can be said about them have probably already been said. These days, I personally find it much more interesting to dive into the dustiest of dusty archives and dig out some stuff that, while perhaps not as well-regarded as the “greats” from over the years, might do some unusual, experimental and creative things with established formulae.

One of the best things about Blaze’s Evercade retro gaming platform is that the people behind it clearly understand this. And so, while the Evercade’s Atari Collection 1 cartridge contains established, all-time early ’80s classics like Asteroids and Centipede for Atari’s monstrously popular 2600 console, it also features 1990’s MotorPsycho — a double-whammy of overlooked goodness in that it is 1) a game that will likely be largely unfamiliar to a lot of people today, and 2) it came out on the Atari 7800, a console no-one bought. So let’s take a closer look!

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Atari ST A to Z: Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge

There are some games that, when they release, you just know they’re going to be all-time greats, forever regarded as classics.

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge from Gremlin Graphics was definitely one of those games. It pushed the “vanishing point” racer formula massively with its split-screen two-player action and its variety of interesting courses, and its presentation and gameplay were immaculate.

It would go on to form the basis of the widely beloved Top Gear for Super NES, which would go on to inspire more recent works such as Horizon Chase Turbo. And it still plays like a dream today. So please put your hands together and give it up for a true racing legend.

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