No Second Prize is a 3D motorbike racing game from German developer and publisher Thalion, with mouse controls and an emphasis on fun, rather than realism.
Which suits me, because realism in these games can really become a problem when all you want to do is complete one lap of the course without crashing, but can’t seem to be able to do that.
It might be considered primitive by today’s standards, but back in 1984 when Pitstop II was first released, it really raised the bar for arcade-style racing games. That is: racing games that are fun to play, rather than being as realistic as possible.
One of the best games on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, Micro Machines 2 (1994), by Codemasters, is a super-fast, overhead racing game for up to four players. It is the sequel to Micro Machines on NES.
Continue reading Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament, Megadrive/Genesis
An early ZX Spectrum classic, Deathchase was first released by Micromega in 1983.
Although it doesn’t look like much (especially in stills), Deathchase was (and still is) an exhilarating game, and is something of a tribute to the speeder bike scenes in Return of the Jedi (which was released the same year as this, in 1983).
Sega‘s tremendous 1987 arcade hit, After Burner, used powerful sprite scaling technology in its cabinets back in the day, to create the mind-bogglingly fast on-screen visuals.
Atari‘s classic Star Wars arcade game took the gaming world by storm back in 1983.
It gave games-players a chance to pilot an X-Wing for the first time and wowed audiences with its superfast vector graphics and amazing digitised sound.
Developed by a team led by Yu Suzuki at Sega in 1985, Space Harrier is a super-fast third-person, flying-into-the-screen fantasy blasting game, originally housed inside a hydraulic cabinet in arcades. This would jerk around as you moved the control stick, giving you a feeling of movement as you played the game.
Jeff Minter‘s classic Iridis Alpha is a weird horizontal shoot ’em up first released in 1986 through Llamasoft and Hewson Consultants.
Archer MacLean‘s seminal Commodore 64 shooter, Dropzone is like a cross between Defender and, erm, Defender, but with more realistic graphics. And slightly different gameplay. But the principles are pretty much the same: super-fast, super-smooth, side-scrolling shooting. Avoid touching anything – or it’s instant death.
Jeff Minter’s 1994 remix of the classic arcade game Tempest is quite exciting on the Atari Jaguar. It features four different play modes, including Traditional, Plus, 2000, and Duel.
The King of Grabs 