Sega Super Scaler Games #7

Super Hang-On (1987)
By: Sega AM2 Genre: Racing Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 9,950,140
Also Available For: Mega Drive, X68000, Nintendo 3DS, Game Boy Advance, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Apple Mac, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

Just thinking of the great names of the other 'Super Scaler' games automatically reminds me of giant hydraulic machines with excited crowds around them in bustling amusement arcades, but that's not the case with Super Hang-On. I had it on my Speccy and later I also had it on my mighty Mega Drive, but I was never fortunate enough to encounter the original in any arcades I visited, so I guess I've always associated it with those two systems. I suppose the Speccy more than the MD, though the version for Sega's own console was obviously far more accurate. The Speccy version was good too, though. As far as I recall, anyway, though I haven't played it for many moons. It may even be among the best racing games on the little home micro. Not that that's saying much, I know. But regardless of all this, I'm way overdue in checking out the super-scaling original, so let's go!

Overrated! #9

Hard Drivin' (1988)
By: Atari Genre: Drivin' Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 44,091
Also Available For: Mega Drive, Lynx, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

When I recently had the brainwave to include this notable game in my 'Overrated!' feature it seemed like a superb idea and I congratulated myself accordingly, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's a game that was ever all that highly rated to begin with. I mean, I seem to recall the conversions getting decent reviews in the many magazines of the day but it's not really a game that gets mentioned nowadays, nor as far back as I can remember after its release. I first played it on my trusty Speccy and it was pretty good, all things considered, but fairly soon after I did actually find its arcade progenitor too. I seem to recall it being a pretty pricey game for the day but I had to try it, obviously. It was housed in a large sit-down cab and was one of those machines that made it seem like a big deal. It even had a key to start it! Once I started playing it, however, I was rather less impressed.

First Look PC #8

Victory Heat Rally by Skydevilpalm (202?) - PC

As someone for whom retro games hold great value, one of the best things about the indie scene for a good few years now is the number of 'homages', or games inspired by other famous old games. There are tons and more turn up seemingly on a weekly basis. This one caught my eye quite a while ago (I believe it has been in my 'games to review' folder for about two years now) as it initially looked to be a Mario Kart-inspired racer. Upon playing it, however, I soon realised it has much more in common with Power Drift and even Out Run 2! There is only a demo so far in which you can choose between two racers and then race over three courses, and it's these that remind me so much of Sega's buggy racer as they are twisty-turny with sharp turns and elevated sections, just like AM2's classic!

First Look PC #7

TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge by KT Racing / Nacon (2018) - PC

As much as I enjoy driving/racing games, there are two types I seldom seem to encounter - really fast examples, and motorcycle-based ones. A good while back on YouTube I happened upon a video of a racing game which was very evidently motorcycle-based and also one that looked very fast. This was enough for me to add it to my Steam wishlist and lo, before much longer I found it on sale (does anyone buy Steam games at full price?). Unusually for me (and probably most people), I immediately installed it and gave it a go. What I found was a game that looked just like the one in the video I had seen, but what that failed to portray, and what I forgot to consider, was the implications of a really fast motorcycle game, particularly one based around the Isle of Man TT course.

Super Conversions #2

The Need For Speed (1996)
By: Electronic Arts Genre: Driving Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Sony PlayStation
Also Available For: 3DO, Saturn, PC

The arrival of the fearsome 32-bit CD-based consoles in the mid-90s was a fascinating time for a gamer. There were several choices, some from newcomers, and in those days each offering needed a 'killer app' to succeed. In many people's eyes, Trip Hawkins' innovative 3DO had one in the shape of The Need For Speed - an immersive, technically stunning point-to-point driving game featuring a roster of real cars which could be driven over varied environments and landscape types against a rival. It persuaded many to commit to the hefty outlay required to play it and was a big hit with those who could afford it (or, more to the point, the expensive console which ran it). The sneers of smug 3DO owners were short-lived, however, as within a couple of years, Electronic bloody Arts had ported it to the PlayStation and Saturn, and it wasn't too long after this the 3DO itself went down as well.

First Look PC #5

Inertial Drift: Sunset Prologue by PQube / Level 91 Entertainment (2020) - PC

How long has there been drifting in racing games? Was Daytona USA the first? However long it has been, one thing's for sure - pulling off a proper, respectable drift takes a lot of practise as it's pretty hard to do in most games. BUT WAIT! What if someone made a game specialising in drifting and made it simpler to actually perform the drifts? Well whoopdy dee and trolly bazoo, that sounds like a wonderful idea! Happily, a Northern Irish indie developer called Level 91 Entertainment has now done just that! Inertial Drift, without the 'Sunset Prologue' part, was launched in September of last year on Steam as well as for PS4 and Switch for around £15. However, if funds are tight and/or you aren't sure whether to take the chance on it, Level 91 have also been good enough to release this Sunset Prologue version which is basically just a fancy name for a free playable demo!

F-Zero - Extinct?

Many moons have passed since last I wrote about the F-Zero series but it has rarely strayed far from my thoughts. Featuring most often among these thoughts is my desire to see a brand new F-Zero game. It has been some 16 years now since the last one - Climax for the Game Boy Advance - and despite ample opportunities for sequels on the Wii, WiiU, DS/3DS or Switch, there hasn't been so much as a whisper.

This continues to be a great source of sorrow for me, not to mention confusion, but never have I sought an explanation for what must be considered a significant oversight on Nintendo's part. According to my subsequent research however, the answer only serves to confuse me even more. The great Shigeru Miyamoto has reportedly said that they stopped producing new F-Zero games because there was little new they could add to the series. This, combined with the fact that other developers started releasing their own futuristic racers, meant that Nintendo didn't want to make any new F-Zero titles unless they could find something new to bring to the table, but they couldn't so they stopped. Now, I can understand Nintendo's, particularly Miyamoto's desire to be innovative - that's basically what Nintendo have always been about, certainly in terms of hardware - but most developers' idea of innovation or progression in a game series is simply to release a sequel/reboot for the latest hardware that takes advantage of the new system's abilities. Why couldn't Nintendo do that for their own systems?

Crap Games #12

Off-World Interceptor (1994)
By: Crystal Dynamics Genre: Racing / Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: 3DO First Day Score: 195,800 (cash)
Also Available For: Saturn, PlayStation

Most of the titles that are included in the 'Crap Games' feature here at Red Parsley were so chosen due to near-unanimous scorn at the time of their release from magazines of the day, but this one is a little different. I decided to include Off-World Interceptor mainly because of the intense disappointment I felt towards it personally. It hardly received glowing reviews anyway I guess, but I was enjoying my 3DO and its remarkable 3D abilities at the time, in particular The Need For Speed which was so far ahead of any other racing game I'd played. It was still just one game though, and I wanted another racing game for my powerful new console. Unfortunately, there weren't too many options available for it but I saw screenshots of Off-World Interceptor and thought it looked pretty good at least, so figured it was worth a try. Happily I was able to find it at my local games store, and at a bargain price too, and I was eager to get started on my... umm, off-world intercepting.

PS4 Purchases #9

Redout by 34BigThings (2016)

Racing games have long been one of my favourite genres, particularly ones of the futuristic type since I discovered F-Zero, and I'm always on the lookout for new ones. I only heard about Redout a couple of years ago and it had been on my Steam wishlist ever since. But then I happened to see it for a bargain price (£15, I think) on Amazon for the PS4, and a physical copy of the 'Lightspeed Edition' no less, which I assumed meant it included DLC or some other modern-gaming mumbo jumbo, but it doesn't look like it does. Oh well, suffice to say, I needed little persuading to buy it anyway and was excited to try it out. Sadly, I was quickly disappointed. The graphics, presentation, music, and game modes/options are all excellent but... it's just so damn hard! I'm usually pretty good at games like this but I haven't even finished anywhere but last yet (and some way back too). I'll give it some more time and post about it again here later but... geez, I hadn't expected this type of issue.

Steam / GOG Downloads #7

Retrowave (2020)
By: RewindApp Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: Nothing

Many of us retro gamers have been accused of living in the past. This may or may not be true, but if it is, it might not just be the games of the past in which we seek refuge but perhaps other things too, such as music. As we already know, the music of the 80's was/is awesome but it was only a few years ago that I discovered the wonder that is synthwave - music made in recent times but in the style of 80's synth and electro music. It truly is the greatest thing ever, I listen to it all the time, and it is becoming more and more popular. Synthwave songs have already appeared in some mainstream films (the splendid 2011 release, Drive, being a good example) and the gaming world seems like an even more suitable home. One example that recently caught my eye was Retrowave and I was keen to give it a try.

Overrated! #8

Destruction Derby (1995)
By: Reflections / Psygnosis Genre: Racing Players: 1-2 (via link-up) Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Sony PlayStation First Day Score: 108
Also Available For: Saturn, PC

Unlike the poor old Saturn, the PS1 had a good few decent titles available at launch, including some that did a great job of showing off what the system could do. One of the more popular was Destruction Derby, a vehicular combat game developed right here in spiffing Blighty! Sadly, this was not enough to win my favour, and it wasn't even to do with my strong Sega allegiance as the Saturn got a version too! Indeed, as boring as it might be, I didn't like the game at the time, simply because I didn't enjoy playing it much. I was clearly in the minority though, for it was enthusiastically received by gamers of the time, many of them eager to impress all-comers with their fancy new consoles, and the series is fondly remembered today as well, so I thought it was high time I went back for another, perhaps less scornful look.

Top Five PC Engine Racing Games

Although it certainly didn't start as such, this has almost turned into one of the old 'comedy' Top Fives I used to do. The main reason for this was down to how difficult it turned out to be to even find five half-decent racing games for this usually-excellent system. I know the mighty PC Engine is hardly known for this genre - its legendary status is more to do with its outstanding shmups and platformers - but I still didn't think I've have as much trouble as I did. So, I guess you should probably instead consider this the Top Five Least Crap PC Engine Racing Games instead!

Special Note: This list does not include overheard/top-down racing games as they are different enough and numerous enough to have their own list.

5. Power Drift (1990)

If I'm honest, I've never been the biggest fan of Power Drift, at least compared to other Super Scaler games, and porting it to the Engine was ambitious, but it's actually not too bad. It does deviate from the arcade version a little in that it basically gives you a championship mode in place of the arcade mode, meaning you have to work your way through the courses rather than just choose any you like. It works quite well though, and it's technically quite impressive, all things considered. It does suffer from the same faults as the arcade version (or what I always perceived to be faults anyway) - namely, the undulating log sections of track often making it hard to see where you're going, and the large cars making it hard to overtake (or be overtaken). But that does at least mean it's a good conversion I guess, and it's pretty good fun to play now and then too. The graphics are probably about as good as you could expect too, although the music isn't so great, but this could easily have been a lot worse, as some of the other versions were.

First Look Xbox #2

Burnout Revenge by Criterion Games / Electronic Arts (2005) - Xbox

From the moment I played Burnout I loved it. It's exactly the kind of racing game I like. Happily for me, the sequel was even better. Both games contain among the fastest, most precise, and most intense racing action I've experienced in an arcade racer and I spent many hours going through all the races and competitions and attempting to better my times. Then the foul EA bought Criterion and, typically, they ruined just about everything I loved about the games. I played Takedown for about ten minutes and that was enough to know I didn't like it, so when I saw Revenge for a mere £2 a while back, even at that price I wasn't sure. I got it anyway in the end, to review here if nothing else, but I didn't expect to like it any more than Takedown. Expecting to dislike a game going in isn't the best idea I suppose but everything I had seen indicated a continuation of EA's nonsense, and indeed, when I finally got it going, an intense frown immediately developed as I realised I had been correct all along.

Early Driving Games #14

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (1990)
By: Magnetic Fields Genre: Driving Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Commodore Amiga
Also Available For: CD32, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

To a small percentage of people, a 'Lotus' may be a distinctive type of flower, while many more associate the word with speedy little British sports cars. Mention it to an Amiga or Atari ST fan though, and their eyes will likely immediately well up as they fondly remember one of the most beloved of all games for their treasured 16-bit home micro, and probably one of the finest racing games outside the arcades at the time of its original release. This came courtesy of Messrs Southern and Morris who comprised British developer, Magnetic Fields, and it was an instant smash hit, even making the Amiga and ST themselves more desirable to anyone who wasn't lucky enough to already own one of them. Despite being a MegaDrive owner at the time, I remember being suitably impressed myself, and I have fond memories of playing this splendid game.

How Much? Turning Racing Games Into Reality

Well, kind of. Racing games have pretty much always been among the most popular of all games, and examples over the years have featured vehicles of all sorts of different shapes and types. Many of the most iconic of these are of course mental track cars like the F1 and LMP types (Continental Circus, WEC Le Mans, Winning Run, etc) which few of us will even have the chance to get run over by never mind drive for ourselves. Many others are not even real (Road Blasters, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, Burnout, etc) so it doesn't matter how much we might want them.

Some, though, are real, so if you really wanted to, the potential is there to live out your fantasies and recreate your favourite game in real life! In a more realistic and responsible manner, naturally, but still, it's not beyond reason that some of us could be able to drive or even own one of our favourite cars from our favourite game of yesteryear. I decided, therefore, to see just how realistic this might be by looking at a handful of examples along with the price potential buyers might expect to pay.

Ferrari F40
As seen in... Turbo OutRun & Crazy Cars III (amongst others)

A jaw-dropping revelation when it first appeared and still widely regarded as one of the best supercars ever made, Ferrari's celebration of itself (it was designed to celebrate their 40th anniversary) was immediately iconic. It was therefore not an enormous surprise to see it represented in the world of gaming soon after its real unveiling. The first game I remember seeing it in was Sega's splendid Turbo OutRun but it was also featured prominently in Titus's home computer release, Crazy Cars 2, although in this case most gamers quickly realised its inclusion was the only good thing about the frankly rather awful game.

Arcade Racing Games #6

Big Run (1989)
By: Jaleco Genre: Racing Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 580,300
Also Available For: SNES, Amiga, Atari ST

Not the most inspiring of title screens...

During the years driving games first became popular in arcades (i.e. following OutRun's release), it seems like developers felt they needed little more than a gimmick to make their mark in the genre. Jaleco's effort was the somewhat ambiguously-named Big Run but the gimmick they opted for was to base it on the Dakar-Paris Rally. It may well have been the first such game to be based on the gruelling event in fact (although a similar claim has been made of Victory Run for the PC Engine which came out a couple of years earlier), but was it enough to earn it a spot at the head table, so to speak? Well, I think I recall being reasonably impressed with it back then on the only occasion I briefly encountered it, but how does it fare after a proper play-through thirty years later? It doesn't make the best of first impressions with possibly the drabbest title screen of all time, but things could only get better from there, surely? I was certainly pretty hopeful at least.

Indie Games News/Previews #10

Racing Apex by Lucky Mountain Games (2017) - PC

Those of us who are old enough to remember the birth of 3D gaming will no doubt have a fondness for the earliest examples with their chunky polygons, crude textures, and scenery pop-up galore. Even in their rather limited forms they were still jaw-droppers in their day, and it seems the talented folk of Lucky Mountain Games recall them as fondly as anyone, for they have been hard at work making the forthcoming Racing Apex, a super-arcadey racing game based on some of those very pioneers. The example that appears to have most keenly influenced them, at least visually, is Sega's seminal Virtua Racing, but there is much more here than we had in the Model 1 stonker back in 1992.

Non-Retro News - New Racing Game From Sega!

To be honest, I don't often pay all that much attention to Sega these days. It's a pretty sad thing to admit but they've been slowly declining for some time which is a sad thing to see too. Every now and then, however, some news from them reaches my ears and breaches the security measures meant to filter out the mundane. One thing that's likely to do that is news of a new Sega arcade game.

We've already had a similar announcement from them last year regarding Daytona 3 Championship USA which was mighty welcome - not sure what happened to that actually, the only news since then that I've heard is that they've now dropped the '3' from the title - but anyway, the latest news coming from Sega's arcade division over in Japan is also about a racing game, but this time we're getting a brand spanking new one!

As far as I'm aware, Sega haven't even revealed any screenshots yet nevermind in-game footage, but they have released a few details. It will be called Sega World Drivers Championship and is based on what is apparently the most popular form of motor racing in Japan - the Super GT touring car series. They have already visited this series before with the appropriately-named Sega Super GT (a.k.a. Scud Race), so I guess you could consider SWDC a 'spiritual' sequel to their famously-unconverted mid-90's racer, and like that game it carries an official license which means it will feature all the teams and cars from the real Super GT series including the mental Toyotas, Hondas, Lexuses, Subarus, and Nissans you may (but probably have not) seen on TV hacking around various circuits.

First Look PC #4

Project CARS (Pagani Edition) by Slightly Mad Studios / Bandai Namco (2015) - PC

Driving games have always among my favourites and it has pained me to miss out on some of the more recent ones. One that has looked as good as any in recent years is Project CARS but I don't own any of the consoles it's on and I was far from confident my PC would be able to handle it. An opportunity to find out came recently, however, when Steam offered a special cut-down version of the game for free! It is this, the Pagani Edition. I imagine it is meant as a kind of playable demo for the full game but however it was intended it was a nice surprise. Even more of a surprise, though, is that despite its apparent minimum system requirements exceeding the abilities of my PC, it actually works very well!

Steam / GOG Downloads #3

Colin McRae Rally (2013)
By: Code Masters Genre: Driving Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: Android, iOS

Since the age of the PS1, not only have driving games been far more prevalent but a sizeable portion of them have also been rally games. You might think the title that kick-started this was Sega Rally but as far as I'm concerned it was Colin McRae Rally. The series debuted in 1998 and was a more realistic take on the popular motorsport which in the years prior to the game's release had been dominated by Mr. McRae in his iconic blue Subaru Impreza. It was justifiably a smash hit and led to many sequels which gradually changed names to 'Dirt', presumably due to the tragic and untimely death of the star after whom the series was originally named. But now that original name returns. Does that mean we're in reboot territory? That's what I had assumed prior to playing it at least, but let's see.