Great Sports on the Sega Master System

Fairly early on in the life of the Sega Master System, Sega released a series of sports simulations to entertain armchair atheletes. In the order of the alphabet they were Great Baseball, Great Basketball, Great Football, Great Golf, Great Ice Hockey, Great Soccer and Great Volleyball. Of course, claiming that anything's great usually means that it isn't, with the obvious exception of Great Britain, which is great. And possibly Great Yarmouth. As for Sega's "Great" sports games, it would have been much more truthful to call them Not-so-great Baseball, Bloody Awful Basketball, Absolutely Shite Football, Below Par Golf (see what I did there!?), Pucking Unplayable Ice Hockey, Crap Soccer and Terrible Volleyball. But doing so might have hampered sales somewhat. Even so, Sega did sometimes mix up the names a bit. Some games were apparently "Great" in one country but not in another, or games went under the same title in different countries, but were actually different games. Join us as we look back at this not-very-famous series of games to remind ourselves of why some games are sometimes best left in the past, and also attempt to make some sense of their names.

Penalty! Referee! Oh, wrong sport.

Great Baseball
To be fair, Sega's version of America's favourite bat and ball game wasn't that bad. It's certainly not great by any stretch of the imagination, but is at least moderately fun for a short while. Getting into a game is nice and quick, perhaps a little too quick as before you know it, somebody is throwing a ball at you at 100 miles an hour. There's no need to faff around with options and team selections, parameters, preferences and all manner of crap like many sports games of today require you to do. You simply choose a team from the A or the N league, whatever they are, pick a pitcher and away you go. As per the rules of baseball, you take it in turns to bat and pitch. Three strikes and you're out. Oh! So that's where the saying comes from! Well I never. The view when pitching and batting is from behind the pitcher, and looks quite impressive too. When the ball has been batted into whichever random direction it wants to go, the view switches to an overhead one, allowing you to see the playing field, and the little players running around the bases. There are actually two modes of play, one which allows you to control the fielders, and one which doesn't. Things get a bit fiddly when trying to control the fielders, so it's best to let the computer do that so you can concentrate on throwing the ball back to the bases, and to each other, and back again. The game is peppered with little samples of speech, some of which sounds like it is actually based on real words. The crowd noise sounds like a jet engine taking off though. Little tuneful ditties break up the action, and give a jolly feel to the game. The graphics are also quite good. I'm not sure if pushing the d-pad in any direction when pitching or batting actually has any effect on the ball, but pressing it anyway makes you feel like you're contributing some skill to the game.

This version of Great Baseball was released in Europe and the USA. An earlier game also called Great Baseball was released in Japan. It was a bit slower-paced and didn't utilise the behind the pitcher viewpoint, but it was fairly similar otherwise. Japan also receive a modified and much improved version of the European/US Great Baseball, which was known as The Pro Yakyuu: Pennant Race.

Rounder! Rounder! Rounder! Rounder!

Exciting!

Great Basketball
So, we've had rounders. Now netball. As with most of the "Great" games, there is minimal setup required to get you started with a game. In Great Basketball, options are pretty much limited to choosing whether you are playing by yourself or with a chum, and then choosing a country or countries to represent. A nice little national anthem plays for each nation you pick. Gameplay is arcade-style in, er, style. It's fairly easy to score points, and the game is quite fast-paced, but it's just lacking in variety and any sense of excitement. The ball feels a bit floaty and there is no real skill involved in throwing the ball. It's also too easy to foul other players. Sometimes you can manage it without even pressing a button. A tune plays throughout the game which isn't actually that annoying, although it sounds like the snippets of speech have been sampled from some extra-terrestrial species. They definitely don't represent anything heard on this planet. Graphics are colourful although it's often difficult to make out who's who. Again, like Great Baseball, Basketball is fairly fun to play for a short while, and is quite enjoyable with two players, but not necessarily because it's a good game. It's one of those so bad it's good kind of games.

There were no weird naming shenanigans going on here. Great Basketball was Great Basketball everywhere, apart from Brazil where it was Great Basket.

The USA are beating URS. URS? Ursula? Oh! USSR.

Hut hut! Twenty-eight! Fifty-six! Time out!

Great Football
This is Sega's attempt to bring American Football to owners of their 8-Bit box of tricks. They really shouldn't have bothered. It's terrible. There's a choice of what are probably made-up teams from the good old A and N leagues again, and that's about it. In one player mode, you only appear to be able to play in offence, and picking your tactics is a case of waiting for the formation selection screen to scroll through each formation, stopping it when it highlights the one you want. That's if you can figure out how to stop it. I can't, so I just have to wait until it gets to the last one. Surely it wouldn't have been difficult to program some sort screen with manually selectable menus. Gameplay itself is limited to either running with the ball, or throwing it to somebody else and letting them run with it. Okay, that's pretty much what American Football is, but in reality the sport is usually much more interesting than it sounds. The problem is, this version of American Football just isn't much fun to play at all. The sport itself is very much stop-start, but there's too much stopping and not enough doing anything in this game. Oh well.

The same version of Great Football under the same name was released worldwide. Poor world.

Looks like a load of firemen in a field of sheep.

Fore!

Great Golf
Probably the best of the Great series of games, which isn't really saying much. Great Golf is a fun, if simplistic, round of the Royal and Ancient game. It features two modes of play, Stroke Play and Match Play. Stroke Play is your typical get-around-the-course-in-as-few-shots-as-possible mode, whereas Match Play, which requires a minimum of two players, sees the winner declared based on who wins most holes. There's also a club selection screen. Graphics and sounds are average, with the viewpoint from behind the player taking a short while to display, and sound featuring a few effects, short tunes and the odd bits of sampled speech. Gameplay itself allows you to check the wind direction and speed, set your club, stance, direction and power. That's about it. The ball appears a bit floaty, and if you're playing solo, things get dull quite quickly. Incidentally, this was the very first Master System game I ever owned other than the built in Hang On and Safari Hunt, and I have fond memories of playing this with family and friends. Great days.

This version of Great Golf is the version released in Europe and the USA. An earlier game with the same title was released in Japan, but failed to make it out of Rising Sun land. It was an isometric version of the sport. The European/US version of Great Golf was released in Japan as Masters Golf.

Enough of this shit. Get me to the nineteenth hole.

No it isn't.

Great Ice Hockey
There's not a lot I can say about this. It's only compatible with Sega's crappy trackball controller, the Sega Sports Pad. If you don't have one, and probably 99% of Master System owners didn't, then this game was useless. Apparently it's not much better even with the correct accessory. Things don't sound or look that bad, although you can't really go wrong if your task is to draw ice. But how it actually plays is anyone's guess although I'll bet our cat on it that it doesn't play well. It mystifies me why somebody didn't think to make the game work with the Master System's standard controllers, you know, the ones that came free with every console, therefore the ones that everybody owned. Bizarre.

Fortunately, Europe were spared of the horrors of Great Ice Hockey as it failed to get released there. It did get a release in Japan and the USA.

Where the puck's the puck? Oh, who cares. I can't even play this game.

Lots of effort went into designing this title screen

Great Soccer
Sega managed to turn the Beautiful Game into something quite horrible here. You control your players up and down a pitch and attempt to tap the ball into a goal using a terrible aiming system. Your players move slowly and are unresponsive, and they don't seem able to keep control of the ball. As accurately as this reflects England's 2014 World Cup team, it just isn't much fun at all. Like all of the Great games, getting into the game is quick and easy. But having simple and accessible menu screens does little to redeem things. Graphics are depressing, the sound will offend your ears and you'll be turning this game off within minutes of turning it on. Do I not like that.

Again, there were two versions of Great Soccer. This time around, Japan and Europe received the vertically scrolling Great Soccer game mentioned above. The USA's version of Great Soccer was equally as bad, but scrolled horizontally. It was released in Japan and Europe as World Soccer, and released again in Japan as Sports Pad Soccer, compatible with the Sega Sports Pad.

He shoots! He scores! He wants to play something else!

Nice colour scheme here

Great Volleyball
I really wish I hadn't chosen to try to play through these games. The best of the bunch probably was Great Ice Hockey, but that's only because I couldn't get it to work so didn't have to play it. Fortunately, we've reached the final game, Great Volleyball. Unfortunately, it's just as unplayable as the rest. Things sounds ok and look nice and cartoony, but it's hard to control what's happening. I'm never really sure what player I'm controlling, and he just seems to do what he wants, rather than what I want him to do. You have a team of six players, but sometime you are controlling three of them, sometimes one. And the rest of the team that you're not controlling doesn't appear to want to help out. It's confusing and, once again, not fun. The worst thing is that these games would have originally retailed for about £20 each. Maybe more. The complete set would have set you back £140. That depresses me.

Great Volleyball was the same game in all markets. It was crap everywhere.

Spot the ball

It's not great. It's super.

Anyone for Tennis?
This series of games seemed to represent a number of major sports, but Sega don't appear to have served up anything for tennis fans. Or did they? Well, yes, there was apparently a game called Great Tennis. However, this was only in Japan. Great Tennis did make it abroad though. It was released in countries elsewhere on the planet as Super Tennis. Just the same as how the Great games weren't great, sticking Super at the front of something doesn't make it Super. Except for Super Gran  Unsurprisingly, Super Tennis was a simplistic version of tennis. It's a bit fiddly to control, and the ball seems to be quite floaty, but it's not too bad.

You cannot be serious! We've got another 14 years to go until Virtua Tennis comes out?

A quick update, new YouTube vids!

For those who don't know, Classic Gaming UK have a YouTube channel where I attempt to demonstrate my gaming prowess on games of old. Our channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/classicgaminguk or by searching for classicgaminguk on YouTube.

Most of the videos are playthroughs of games, although there are some other old things that may be of interest to people into, er, old things. So far it's limited to old TV adverts, continuity and the like. I have been quite quiet on YouTube recently though. Partly because the redesign and integration with Google+ confused me, and partly because my upgrade to Windows 8 and then Windows 8.1 seemed to bugger up all of the stuff I had set up on my computer for creating videos. They'd either be choppy, blocky, jerky, or just not working at all. I've also recently changed to a new, more powerful, computer, and after a bit of work and effort, seem to be able to make videos again. So, I've decided that a way to bulk up the catalogue of videos in my channel but not to have to spend forever making them, and to also get to play a variety of games too, is too feature videos featuring just the first levels of games. This will give a taste of what the games have to offer, and may even lead to me discovering some hidden gems that I'd like to go further with - maybe even to attempt to complete and feature a full preview. First up is level one of R-Type, a game I recently reviewed. http://classicgaminguk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/r-type-zx-spectrum.html. The review was of the Spectrum video, but the video is from the arcade game. Recording Speccy games is still not working quite right for me!

Burnin' Rubber - Amstrad GX4000

You're fired!

Game: Burnin' Rubber
Format: Amstrad GX4000
Developer/Publisher: Ocean
Year Released: 1988
Also released on: Amstrad 464 Plus, Amstrad 6128 Plus
Available now on: Internet Archive





The Amstrad GX4000 is remembered for two reasons. One, it was a complete flop and two, it had Burnin' Rubber on it. Burnin' Rubber was the GX4000's most popular game, mostly because it was the game bundled with each console. Yep, all 300 of the console's owners were able to enjoy the delights of Burnin' Rubber, an arcade-style racing game designed to showcase some of the abilities of the GX4000.

Oooh, I can feel the excitement building up just sitting here staring at this screenshot.

Smile! There are plenty of other quality games available
for this console. Oh, wait. There aren't. 

For those who don't know, or those who want reminding, the GX4000 was Amstrad's attempt to enter the console market, and the only British console in video game history. An 8-Bit console released in 1990, it was clearly designed to compete with the Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System. However, its launch was around the same time as the European launch of the Mega Drive and the Super Famicom's Japanese launch, so it was sharing shelf space, and competing for interest,  with much superior consoles. Added to that was the fact that many of its games were rereleases of earlier Amstrad CPC games that were available on tape at a fraction of the price of the GX4000 cartridge version. Even games programmed specifically for the GX4000 weren't up to much, and most felt a bit like computer games rather than console games. Unsurprisingly, the console didn't generate much interest, its price was slashed weeks after launch before the machine was pulled completely after only a few months. Hopefully Sir Lord Alan Sugar did a few firings after such a disaster.

There's some weird voodoo magic thing going on with my car here..

Signs for Ocean and a tunnel. Who knows what continent
lies at the other side?

Even so, the GX4000 is remembered with a certain amount of fondness in some quarters and has achieved something of a cult status. Burnin' Rubber is often regarded as one of its better games. This is probably due to the fact that there was crap all else available for the console. But even on its own merits, just as a video game, it's meant to be quite good. So, shall we take it for a spin? Eh? Anybody there? Oh right, I'm typing this, not talking to anybody. I'll imagine somebody has said yes then and boldly go onto another paragraph.

So, the idea of Burnin' Rubber is simply to drive a car. Begin with a qualifying lap, and then go onto burning dust and eating rubber for real. On starting up the game, the game's title blazes its way onto the screen over a animated tyre-like pattern. The first thing you need to do is change the controller layout. By default, the game is set so that pushing up on the d-pad accelerates, down brakes and the two control pad buttons control the gears up or down if you're playing in manual. The game is much easier if you set the buttons to accelerate and brake and use up and down to control gears. Or ignore the gears and stay in automatic, which is what I do.

Even before the days of Instagram, games like these featured filter effects that make it look like it was made in the 1970s.

Woohoo! 7th!

As already mentioned, you need to complete a quick lap to qualify for the main race. The qualification race is a good way of getting used to the game, but when you've done it once, it seems a bit pointless. Regardless of your qualifying position, it doesn't take long in the main race to get past the cars in the other qualifying positions. Initially your car feels a bit sluggish to control. It doesn't appear to move instantly to your commands. I guess power-steering was still a luxury optional add-on in 1990. Building up speed is also a bit laboured, and using your brakes or going around tight corners results in you losing the speed you've built up and having to get up to speed again to make the most of the straights. But after a while, controlling the car does become quite natural, even quite realistic, albeit sometimes frustrating. If you're not going too fast, colliding with a car just results in you being nudged to the side slightly. But hit one at speed or any of the objects inconsiderately placed at the side of the road will result in you spectacularly flipping over and flying through the air before magically landing in the exact position you need to be in to continue your race. Rather handily, you car doesn't come to a complete stop when either kind of collision happens, meaning you don't have the issue of having to start up again from being parked. It's the little things like this that make a difference to the game, the sort of things that frustrate you in other racing games.

A bit of a grey moment here. Nice tree though.

Other vehicles can be a bit of a nuisance. Some will just decide to make a random movement across the road purely to get in your way whereas others seem to have a habit of breaking down in tunnels, so it's important to try to avoid them.

Graphically, the game is quite good. The GX4000 was able to display quite a number of colours on screen and had a large pallet to choose from so Burnin' Rubber, being a launch title, shows some of this off. The game is supposedly set over 24 hours and as you progress, day turns to night, night becomes day again and the colour scheme changes to reflect this. It does give the feeling that you're progressing nicely through the race as you pass through each part of the day. Cars, backgrounds, roadside objects are all nicely drawn and the scaling of sprites and items works well. The game isn't the fastest out there, but you do definitely feel a sense of speed when you do have the opportunities to put your foot down. All of the on-screen information you need is nicely laid out and everything feels polished and well-presented.

Oh, what a feeling! When we're dancing on the ceiling 

Is that Cameron and Clegg? Or the Pet Shop Boys. Perhaps
they're the same thing.

Sound however is another matter. The intro music and menu screen music is great, but in game effects are horrible. Your car's engine makes quite a nasty noise, which continues throughout the game. There are some effects from when you overtake or get overtaken, but you really need to keep the sound down if you have any respect for your ears. That said, there is a certain "depth" to the sound - things just don't sound as tinny and high-pitched as other 8-Bit games.

Close, but not close enough. Not close at all actually.

Burnin' Rubber is not a bad game at all, and is quite a good launch game. It has some faults but is definitely one of the better 8-Bit racing games. I was initially put off by the game's sluggish controls and lack of oomph, but felt myself getting drawn into it as I continued to play it. I'm not sure it would really have much longevity, but it's a game I'd be happy to come back to for another go from time to time. It's just a shame that factors at the time meant that the GX4000 was doomed from the start as it had the potential to be quite a good machine.

RATINGS

Presentation: 79%
Well presented throughout. Large text fills the screen when needed, the title screen is basic but does the trick, and the menu system is simple and effective. Nothing special but very professional.
Graphics: 83%
A good use of the GX4000's pallet with changing colour schemes, detailed sprites and good crash effects, as well as nice smoke effects. 
Sound: 50%
Good music, sadly lacking in game, replaced instead by horrible engine noise.
Playability: 78%
Ironically given it's name, Burnin' Rubber is a bit of a slow burner. It doesn't instantly appeal but grows on you if you stick with it and turns out to be rather fun.
Overall: 79%
A good example of what the GX4000 could potentially do. Sadly tarnished by the console's reputation but a decent game overall. 

Begone! And don't forget to look for your missing apostrophe!

R-Type - ZX Spectrum

Game: R-Type
Format: ZX Spectrum
Developer/Publisher: Electric Dreams/Activision
Year Released: 1988
Also released on: Arcade, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Atari ST, PC Engine/TurboGrafx, Sega Master System, Nintendo Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Sharp X68000, Sony PlayStation, XBox 360, mobile phones, iOS, Android

R-Type is one of the iconic arcade games of the 1980s. Tough as boots, hard as nails, solid as a rock, you only stood a chance of completing it if you had the eyesight of a hawk and the reflexes of a cat. Or if you happened to be a hawk or a cat with a penchant for playing arcade shooters. As was the tradition back then, successful games tended to find their way out of the arcades and into the homes of computer and console gamers the planet over. R-Type was no exception and was ported to a multitude of machines. Rather remarkably, each conversion was actually rather good. The PC Engine/TurboGrafx game is generally considered to be the best of the bunch, and one of the best games on the system itself, while a splendid version for the Sega Master System was also highly regarded. But it's the ZX Spectrum port which is probably most deserving of praise. As well as being a bloody good version of the game, its existence is something of a technical marvel, pushing Mr Sinclair's baby to its limits and getting it to do things that he probably never thought possible.

The objective of all versions of R-Type is outlined in two lines of text: "Blast off and strike the evil Bydo Empire." No detail is given about what the Bydo Empire is and what it does that makes it so evil. But, striking it involves pitting yourself against a plethora of angry and aggressive alien types over a series of levels. The fact that the Bydo Empire appears to have such an antagonistic arsenal seems to confirm that it is most definitely up to no good, so must be evil.

You take on your enemies in your piddly little spaceship. Well, it looks piddly when compared with the enemies you come up against, especially some of the end of level bosses. But, as with any video game spaceship, it's possible to collect upgrades on your travels to greatly enhance your firepower, turning it into some space-based super destructive light and laser show. You can also power up your beam by holding down the fire button. Letting go of it unleashes a mega blast. A unique feature in R-Type is a collectible pod-like thing. This can be attached to the front or back of your spaceship, offering a smidgen of protection from enemy fire. Or it can be detached and sent off to destroy some of the hostiles that you can't be bothered to destroy yourself. When detached, it is invincible but it leaves you vulnerable. It added a touch of strategy and tactical play to the game. One of the key strengths of R-Type was that, although it was a difficult game, it didn't feel impossible. Your progress through the game is slow, as you eke your way through a level. You play a bit, die, play it again, die again, play again, try a slightly different route, get a bit further, die again, use the same route again, get a little further, die again, and repeat over and over again until you've eventually got your route, the enemy patterns and your tactics memorised to get you through a level. And there's something very satisfying about seemingly being able to fly through the level like a pro, taking out wave after wave of enemies and maxing out your spaceship with power-ups aplenty.

Translating an arcade game to the Spectrum inevitably leads to compromises, but Bob Pape, the man given the task of converting R-Type, did a spectacular job in retaining as much as he could from the arcade version of the game. The graphics are detailed and colourful with no obvious colour clash. Even if there was, there's so much going on that you probably wouldn't notice it. Sprites are recognisable from their arcade counterparts and the effects when firing from your powered up spaceship are remarkable. Special credit must be given to the end of level bosses who are just as fearsome as they are in the arcade original.

The sound in the game is a bit pants. There are no background tunes, although if there were, they'd more than likely be terrible. There are a couple of bits of music which play just before the game begins and when you die, and sound a bit like the phone in 24. But in game sound effects are limited to a put-put-put when you fire, and squelchy noises when you hit an enemy. Other bloops and bleeps and noises make up the rest of the effects. They're inoffensive but not great, but I guess more prominent sounds would get on your nerves after a while.

Most important though is that the game feels like the real thing. The Spectrum version isn't a game loosely based on R-Type - it is R-Type. The original R-Type was all about finding a route and planning your strategy based on what you've learned when attempting it before. And the Spectrum version is the same. The hard bits are still hard, the easy bits (well, easier bits) are still easier. The same enemies appear in the same places, and you have to clear a path in the same way. R-Type is famed for its difficulty level. It was from the eighties when games were tougher and gamers were real men. Or butch women. Throw anything at them and they'd tackle it. None of this modern-day microtransactiony crap where you can buy your way through a game. Ok, we'll ignore the fact that most arcade games could be played to the end if you kept shoving more 10p coins into them and continuing each time you died, which I suppose is actually a microtransaction. Hmmmm, anyway, Like the arcade version, R-Type on the Spectrum is a tough nut, and some might find its difficulty level offputting. Sticking with it does reap rewards, but there's nothing more frustrating than getting your spaceship maxed out to the nines only for you to get shot in the ass by a rogue bullet and having to return to the game with your standard setup. Later on in the game, the going gets extremely tough unless you have a bit of extra help from your weaponary. This isn't really a fault of the conversion, and it's exactly how all other versions play, but it's one of the reasons why R-Type isn't everybody's cup of Yorkshire Tea. There is a bit of slowdown when too much is going on, and it sometimes feels like frames go missing as a way of the game trying to keep up with the action so it loses some of its fluidity. Responsive controls are a must for a game like this and in this version, the controls are fine, although you really need to play it with a joystick or control pad to prevent getting your fingers all a-tangle. One issue, again inherited from the arcade version, is that your spaceship moves a little too slow. Sometimes, an almost-certain death stares you in your face. All you need to do to avoid it is move a little to the right. But, your spaceship just doesn't seem to want to move quick enough. Of course, quicker movement would probably result in less control over it, so perhaps its speed is just right. Who knows?

So, R-Type on the Speccy is a great conversion, and a must-have game for any Spectrum collection. Looks great, sounds shite, plays great. But, there is a problem. And this affects many games converted from arcades to home machines in this modern world of emulation and rererereleases and suchlike. Why would anybody play it today? The whole point of porting the game to computers like the Spectrum was to bring the arcade game to home audiences. The truth is that, although it was a fantastic port of R-Type, the arcade game is much better. And when it's now possible to get hold of the arcade game itself either through official rereleases or through other methods usually involving MAME and a visit to your favourite ROM-hosting website, there is little need to play a conversion of it. You can just play the real thing. The Spectrum version is definitely worth taking a look at and is a great game in its own right, but unless you're the sort of person who wants to complete every version there ever was of R-Type, you'd only really have a go of Spectrum R-Type for curiosity's sake. In a similar way, both the PC Engine/TurboGrafx version and the Sega Master System version were released on the Wii's Virtual Console service. The PC Engine version was clearly the better one, so why would anybody who wanted to play R-Type on the Wii opt to download the Master System version? And, on that note, I shall end my review. I'm kind of depressed now. I've convinced myself that all home conversions are pointless if they don't improve on the arcade version. Wish I'd never have mentioned it now.....

RATINGS

Presentation: 80%
The Spectrum makes a great attempt at emulating the arcade's iconic title screen, continue and high score screens, and things are consistently well presented throughout the game. 
Graphics: 95%
Fantastic graphics which show the intrinsic details of the alien worlds and their inhabitants, with plenty of colour and some amazing effects. Some of the Speccy's best.
Sound: 55%
No music, but the sound effects are adequate. 
Playability: 82%
Challenging initially, but the game lures you in and holds your attention as you know that on each attempt, you can get a little further by finding the optimum route through each level. Importantly though, it's great fun. 
Overall: 85%
A Spectrum classic, and a fantastic conversion of a great arcade game, but slightly redundant today when you can just play the arcade game instead. 

.

Road Fighter - Nintendo Entertainment System

Road Fighter  - sounds exciting!

Game: Road Fighter
Format: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Konami/Palcom
Year Released: 1991
Also released on: Arcade, MSX 
Now available on: Nothing

I've always been interested in bad games. Not because I get some perverse pleasure out of attempting to play them. More that I'm fascinated by what makes them so bad. Is it down to poor design or bad controls? Is it too easy, too hard, totally unfair, completely unfathomable or simply not any fun? What was the reason for games that were so clearly terrible still managing to find their way into shops? Why did nobody at any part of the process between the first code being written to the game being put onto a disc, tape or cartridge say "This is complete shite!" and attempt to stop things from going any further. Was it corporate greed, bad planning, ridiculous deadlines, publisher arrogance or contempt of their customers? In the case of Atari, famous for releasing two of the more notorious bad games, Pac-Man and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial for the VCS, it was probably all of the above. Yes, Atari's apparent "policy" of passing any old garbage off as a video game was partly responsible for the entire gaming industry pretty much imploding in the early 80s in the USA. Arguably, they were helped along this path of self-destruction by Coleco and Magnavox who also appeared to allow their Colecovision and Intellivision consoles to play host to countless cartridges of crap. The inevitable collapse resulted in most console manufacturers exiting the industry, with Atari remaining as the sole survivor, but much smaller and much poorer than they once were.

Nintendo's Fun Box

Filling the void and arriving in America as the saviour of the video game industry were Nintendo with their exciting new grey box of fun, the Nintendo Entertainment System, with Mario and his Bros. in tow and lots of other fab games. The NES quickly became the console that all the kids wanted - mostly because it was the only console available. And to prevent a repeat of what had gone before, Nintendo made the most of their monopoly by restricting the activities of the publishers who wanted to release games for their console. All games had to be released on cartridges manufactured by and purchased from Nintendo, only five games per publisher could be released a year, and the publisher couldn't release the game on a competitor's console for a couple of years. Satisfy the big N and you'd get a gold star slapped on your box signifying that Nintendo had given it their Golden Seal of Approval. As a consumer, this meant that every game released for the NES was going to be of high quality, didn't it? Well, no, not entirely. Although the seal of approval gave consumers the impression that Nintendo had given the game their thumbs-up and that the massive grey cartridge that they had in their hand contained something special, the reality was that the seal was just a way of saying that the publisher had kept to Nintendo's rules. As restrictive (and later illegal) as they were, it can't be denied that Nintendo's measures did definitely result in a marked improvement in the quality of games released and prevented publishers from taking the piss and just shitting out code and claiming that it was a game. The NES is still regarded as one of the best consoles in the history of the gaming industry, and that is largely down to the fact that it had some amazing games released for it, games that remain classics today. This was surely down to Nintendo's tight controls. But, they didn't completely prevent the odd turkey from getting out. Road Fighter, released in 1991, is a good example of a game gone bad. It's also a good example of what happens when publishers find a way around Nintendo's rules, and why the rules were there in the first place. Mean Machines, the UK's most popular console magazine in the early nineties, reviewed the game and gave it a rating of 9%, making a point on the issue's front cover that the magazine contained the "Worst Game Ever". Over two decades later, I still hadn't got around to experiencing the alleged horrors of Road Fighter. Until now. But after taking it for a spin, I have to say that it definitely isn't as bad as the review made out. It's by no means a great game, but it certainly isn't deserving of its 9% score.

Road Fighter is a conversion of an arcade game with the same name. Developed by Konami in the mid eighties, the arcade game was an overhead vertical scrolling driving game from an era of when overhead vertical scrolling driving games were all the rage. The idea is simply to drive along a road, avoid other cars and get to the end of the course before you run out of fuel. Once you're out of fuel, it's game over.

Ever get the feeling you're the odd one out?

The NES conversion remains faithful to its arcade parent in that it also requires you to drive along a road, avoid other cars and try not to run out of fuel. Sounds like my typical drive to work. There are only two tantalising options to choose from, representing easy or hard but called level 1 and level 2 just to confuse you. Once you've picked your level, you're onto the open road. After the starting beeps have beeped, your opponents race off, leaving you behind to start your car and build up speed by pushing down the accelerate buttons. You have a choice of two speeds, slow or fast. Slow in this game is apparently 222 kilometres an hour. Fast is a super speedy 400 km/h. One button allows you to drive "slowly", the other makes you go faster. You can move your car left or right using the d-pad. 

Vrmmmmm....

In most cases, cars just let you pass them. But, some of the drivers are twats and decide to block your way as you approach them to overtake. They tend to drive blue or red cars. The blue cars are probably BMWs and red ones are Audis. Yep, definitely reminds me of my commute to work. Colliding with other vehicles usually results in you spinning off to the side of the road, which causes you to explode when you reach it. But your RAC membership helps you to get back on the road in no time - virtually instantly - ready for you to continue your journey. It is possible to stop your car from spinning out of control after an accident by steering in the opposite direction to the one you're going in straight after having a bump. It's not easy, but might make the difference between you getting to the end of the course or falling short. You see, the car you're driving appears to be the most fuel inefficient car in existence and loses fuel at an alarming rate. Collisions, their often inevitable explosions and the time it takes to get back on the track and back to full speed are the main drain on your fuel. Fortunately, rainbow coloured cars carry fuel and driving into them replenishes a small amount of fuel. Not by much, but if you collect enough, you should have just enough to get you to your destination. Unfortunately, driving up the backsides of rainbow cars tend to be the BMW-driving shitheads so getting hold of fuel can sometimes be a risky manoeuvre. Superman sometimes makes a bizarre cameo appearance, flying along the track. He awards extra fuel and points. Or maybe just points. Usually I'm so in awe by his random appearance that I don't really know what he actually does.

At first, the game feels a bit unfair. Your car just doesn't seem to have enough fuel to complete your journey, so collecting replenishments is essential. Of course, the game wouldn't be that challenging otherwise so it's a bit of a moot criticism. Once you get used to dodging the drivers who appear to be intent on getting in your way and master the art of refuelling, the game becomes much more tolerable and getting from one level to the next is quite achievable, if not entirely fun.

Made it to the end with 1 drop of fuel left. Now, how am I going to get it to the garage to fill up?

Kaboom!! 

Presentation is quite lacking with just a static title screen to welcome you when switching on the game and just text on a black background when picking your options. Its uninspiring but it does the job. Similarly, the graphics aren't amazing but do change for each course although are more reminiscent of early NES games than something released in 1991 (there's a reason for this, to be revealed later). The same can be said about the sound. A tune plays at the start of the first track and when you get to the finishing line of each one, but throughout the game itself, it's just your engine noise and a few effects when overtaking BMWs or Audis, collecting rainbow cars or colliding with something. The engine noise gets a bit grating quite quickly.

Get the rainbow car for extra fuel!! I do that in real life too.

It takes a while to speed up and you definitely don't feel like you're doing the 400 km/h that the speedo says you're doing, but there is a sense of speed and the game scrolls upwards quickly and smoothly. The controls are also fairly responsive as you direct you car, although your car appears to move sideways rather than turn into the direction that you send it. Importantly the controls aren't too sensitive or under sensitive.

Already done this screenshot, haven't I? Oh well,
here it is again. Kaboom!

So, what exactly is wrong with the game? Basically, it's too short and isn't really much fun. There are only four courses and it's possible to complete them in about five minutes. The problem is that it is just an upwards scrolling avoid-em-up. Yes, it can be seen as a test of skills and reactions, and the game does reward skilful playing. But, although it doesn't feel like too much of a chore to play it, it just doesn't endear itself to the player in any way. It doesn't look or sound great, the red and blue cars wind you up, as do the hazards like oil slicks or pot holes in the middle of the road. Collisions result in frustration if you don't manage to salvage things before your car spins out of control and off the side of the road. It's also not easy to avoid a collision. Both buttons are used to accelerate your car, so you don't really have any brakes. The only way of slowing down is by letting go of one of the acceleration buttons. Also, your fuel depletes depending on what speed you're going at. Staying in slow gear the whole way means you lose fuel at a slower rate. So, you can quite easily get to the end of each course by just driving slowly. It makes the game easier, but takes some of the enjoyment out of it. What enjoyment there is in it.

The red car and the blue car had a race. And a truck and a yellow car did too.

Road Fighter isn't completely unplayable and will provide a bit of fun and challenge for a short length of time. After two or three goes though, you'll have either completed it or given up and begun looking for something else to play. If you ever need a game to define the word "average" then Road Fighter would be it.

Roadworks and nobody doing any work. Typical!

RATINGS
Presentation: 30%
A dull title screen is all you get, with in-game presentation lacking. 
Graphics: 40%
The sprites are small and lack suitable animation, and the backgrounds and tracks are uninspiring. Scrolling is fast and smooth though.
Sound: 45%
A couple of tunes introduce and end games, the rest of the game is made up of average sound effects. 
Playability: 55%
Frustrating at first, but there is a feeling of satisfaction once you get to grips with the game and manage to get to the end of a course with fuel to spare.
Overall: 50%
Definitely not the greatest NES game ever released, but certainly not the worst. Playable in small doses but not as enjoyable as it could have been.

The title screen from the game's first release.

BREAKING THE RULES
Earlier in the review, I mentioned something about Road Fighter being a good example of what happens when publishers find a way around Nintendo's strict licensing rules and why those rules existed in the first place. One of the restrictions that Nintendo placed was that publishing companies could only release a limited number of games for the NES a year, usually five. In theory, this would mean that the publishers would ensure that their games were top notch so that they could maximise sales. It would also give the NES a library of good quality games. One way of getting around this rule was by publishers setting up multiple companies, and producing games under that name. Konami set up Palcom (which later became Ultra) which doubled the number of games they could release. Konami were the developers of the Road Fighter arcade game, but released the NES conversion under their Palcom label. Incidentally, although it wasn't released in the USA and Europe until 1991, the game had actually been programmed and released in Japan for the Famicom in 1985. So, not only did the cheeky beggars use a loophole in Nintendo's licensing policy to allow them to release more games, they used their extra allowance to rerelease substandard games that they'd made years earlier. In a way, it proved that Nintendo were kind of right. A company being less limited in the number of games they can release would result in them being more likely to release crap games.