RPM Racing for the SNES is an isometric, split-screen racing game that was developed by Silicon & Synapse (the company that later became Blizzard) and published by Interplay in 1991 in North America, and in 1992 in Japan. I don’t think it was ever given an official European release. The RPM part of the title stands for: “Radical Psycho Machine“.
It is the predecessor to Rock n’ Roll Racing (1993), and the successor to Racing Destruction Set (1984). They apparently took the core logic editor and track editor from Racing Destruction Set and ported it over to the SNES, before customising it with everything else they wanted in the game.
From my point of view RPM Racing is an exceptionally interesting game because it runs in an unusual interlaced video mode. It runs at 512×448, which is much higher resolution than most SNES games do, but the downside is: it uses fewer colours and has a slightly choppy frame rate. But the grabs here really do look very crisp… LOL.
Actually, if you look at the very first grab – the title screen – you might notice that it mixes two display modes, and that the one at the bottom is much higher resolution than the top one. Combined, these two display modes give the game a unique look.
The biggest problem with RPM Racing, though, is a lack of character to the game, and a lack of variation in the track graphics. There’s too much green in these screenshots! So much so that it looks like a bloody snooker game! 🙂
Silicon & Synapse learned their lesson and used a lower resolution, higher colour and higher frame rate version of the same engine for Rock & Roll Racing. Which does look a lot better. They definitely injected some character into that game too, but completely failed to add any to RPM Racing.
RPM Racing comes off second-best against Rock & Roll Racing, that much is clear, but it’s still an interesting and playable game overall. It’s still well worth a play today, especially if you want context for Racing Destruction Set and Rock & Roll Racing similarities.
More: RPM Racing on Wikipedia
