Game: Zippy Race
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Irem
Release Date: 18th July 1985
Zippy Race is a top-down checkpoint racing game where players start in 90th place on the road from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. On the way, the main objective is to avoid and overtake other cars to advance into first place and make it through all five stages on a tour of the USA. The minimum speed of travel is 59 km/h (attempts to brake at this speed will have no effect) and the initial maximum is 180 km/h until the game loops.
The main issue with the game is the extremely aggressive AI cars who will almost mirror player movements from both behind and in front, meaning attempts to pass must be timed very carefully and executed with precision. I found it far easier to travel the entire course at the slowest speed, letting opponents pass from behind and remaining in 99th place than to accelerate at all and crash out, losing valuable fuel and getting the Game Over screen before reaching Las Vegas.
There's a short section of the game which isn't top down; if players manage to get near enough to Las Vegas, the 'action' switches to a Hang-On style from behind view and players will have a far easier time dodging cars coming towards them. Once this section is over, the new stage begins and players once again face the impossibility of making their way past more AI cars on a harder course. Graphically the game is pretty basic, and the cars aren't too much better than those on the Atari 2600. If you like 20 second music loops though, you're in luck because that's the only soundtrack you'll be getting.
Overall Zippy Race is an early and basic game which had the potential to be fun with less aggressive and mirror-based AI, courses which weren't full of turns that gave opponents the perfect chance to box players in, and perhaps some more imaginative scenery. There's hardly any fun or replayability, especially since I did best taking the courses as slow as possible.
Rating: 33/100
Grade: E
Game: Road Fighter
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Konami
Release Date: 11th July 1985
Road Fighter features a very similar top-down racing concept to Zippy Race, though there are no positions as the race is against the fuel meter which is essentially a clock, ticking down to a game over screen. Contact with AI racers isn't an immediate fuel penalty as it is with Zippy Race; players get the opportunity to either slow down or counter-intuitively steer into the spin and self-right. Unlike Zippy race, there's no minimum speed and players may stop if they wish, though the car accelerates very slowly, with 20km/h on the speedometer being stationary also.
There are two set speeds controlled by the A and B buttons, but to reach the goal within the time limit, players will want to use the faster of the two almost exclusively. Different types of traffic cars are featured throughout levels; yellow cars are simply moving in one lane at a set speed, blue cars steer across lanes, but don't necessarily target players, and red cars attempt to get in the way. There are also multicoloured cars which provide extra fuel, though this is never really made clear since they look like any other car you're meant to avoid.
Graphically the game is more zoomed out that Zippy Race, giving a greater range of movement and a better sense of speed, though the 400 km/h top speed feels more like 160 or so. The screen scrolls pretty fast at top speed, meaning that other cars and oil slicks can be hard to avoid without learning the courses beforehand; almost a necessity to reach the goal in each one. There's different themes to each level, if you can reach them but it's only the scenery featured at the side of the road that changes in any noticeable way.
Overall Road Fighter is marginally better than Zippy Race, but has its own issues which make it difficult to enjoy. Without any real music, players are left to listen to the drone of the car engines, and the game's replayability seems to come solely from the difficulty of making it through stages without having previously seen and learnt them.
Rating: 57/100
Grade: D
Game: Excitebike
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Nintendo
Release: 18th October 1985
Excitebike is quite rightly one of the best known NES racing games; there are three game modes, the first of which is essentially a time trial mode where players aim to beat the best time on each of the game's five tracks. The next mode is a racing mode where there are other bikes on the track, though lap times are still used to rank racers, rather than positions. Finally there's a circuit design mode where players can place any types of obstacle and ramp on tracks that they desire and then race on their created circuit.
On each track there are four lanes that players can race in, with different obstacles appearing on each as well as ramps and gaps which span all four lanes. Players must balance the angles of their landing with high and low acceleration; the former heats up the bike's engine, which past a certain point will overheat and incur a time penalty whilst the engine cools back down. In modes with other racers on track, it's possible to fall off your bike from hitting them, but usually its if you're trailing them.
Graphically the game is simple with a repeating pattern for the crowd, and fairly basic sprites for both players and opponents. That said, it's easy to see everything happening on screen, and there's virtually no confusing as to what's coming up ahead. Musically there's only a short interlude on the title screen; otherwise players are left with just the sounds of the motorbike engines.
Overall Excitebike offers far more than many NES games of the day, with 2 contrasting game modes that don't simply vary in difficulty, 5 tracks to race on and a track editor. While it's not the most advanced or impressive game, the concept and controls and simple, with a hint of strategy to avoid engine overheats. There's a lot of fun to be had here for a game released 30 years ago.
Rating: 62/100
Grade: C
Game: F1 Race
Console: Nintendo Famicom
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: 2nd November 1984
One of the older games on the Famicom that didn't make it over to the NES, F1 Race is a pretty straight forward racing game featuring 3 different sets of circuits for the 3 different skill levels on its menu. Players control a Formula 1 car and can accelerate at a medium or high rate, with high and low gears to choose from. These can be useful when cornering as a lower rate of acceleration is needed to keep the steering consistent whilst overtaking opponents.
It can be fairly difficult to advance beyond even the 2nd race in Skill Level 1 and near impossible to advance in either of the other skill levels. Whilst this does give the game the old fashioned replayability of practice making perfect, it's frustrating to have to play the first few races over and over again for even a hope of progressing to the later stages.
Graphically the game is pretty basic; it still looks like the sort of NES game we know and love, but having been released in 1984 there's some rough edges that likely would have been improved later on, had the game been enhanced for western release. The racing style is reminiscent of Hang-On and Outrun though obviously existing before them. There's little in-game music, but the menu and game over screens have some nice harmonies in their short interludes.
Overall F1 Race isn't the sort of game that'd have been a classic, even if it had been brought over to the west. With a high difficulty level, basic graphics and a lack of music it'd have definitely struggled to compete with 1987's crop of games when the NES was finally released in the UK, but that's not to say it's a bad game all things considered.
Rating: 45/100
Grade: D
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