Wouldn't it be nice if you could get your Spectrum to sort of 'pretend' it was a car, allowing you to zoom about to your heart's content for minimal outlay? Well, actually you can! Yes, all you need to do is get a suitable driving game, load it up and you've got yourself a set of wheels. It'll be almost exactly the same as driving a real car except that you can crash as much as you like without having to worry about repair costs. And you'll be able to choose from all the latest posh sports cars like Porsches, Ferraris and Lotuses and drive them as far and as fast as you like without having to splash out on a drop of petrol! (In fact, because driving games are so much cheaper and more practical than real cars, it is predicted that by the year 2012 the motorcar will have become obsolete, replaced by the driving game.)
The only trouble with all this is that it's a bit hard to pick up girls with a 48K Spectrum.
Mmm, knew we'd have to get round to this sometime. Well, I've had a think and come, up with the following spec...
Seems simple enough. It means we're including Grand Prix-type games (where you just race against other cars) and shooting ones (where you zap them) but not similar-looking ones that don't have cars, bikes or lorries in (like boat ones). Okay?
Phew. I never thought it would be quite so easy.
Oh cripes. Look, just shurrup, will you, whoever you are. No, Army Moves is out, I'm afraid. It's rubbish anyway.
So let's take a look at a few examples, eh? It's worth noting that, where driving games are concerned, the ratio of crap ones to good ones is a lot higher than with other types of game (apart from football games, of course). So you can't be too careful.
Despite a sore knee and a terrible fear of the dark, I crouched down in the murkiest corner of the shed to browse through my collection of cardboard-boxed archives. And did I come up with anything? Well, not really. Certainly nothing very interesting in the driving games department. I was hoping to turn up some really ropey-looking Basic game from about 1982, but the best I could come up with was Chequered Flag, a Sinclair game that came out a year later. It's quite good actually - a bit like Pole Position without any other cars to race against. We'll give it a thorough going-over later, but in the meantime I'll stick my neck out and say Chequered Flag was the first commercial driving game.
The Normal Ratings System? You don't want that old thing. No sir, over here we have the brand-new top-of-the-range 1990 model. It's turbo-charged, fuel-injected, 16-valve, super-cooled and has a full X-pack (with droop snoot). And spots. You'll be doing yourself a favour.
It's no good having a driving game that seems to be simulating a horse and cart or something. You want real power, a feeling of being at one with the road and all that sort of thing. Control responses, speed etc. are all taken into account here.
Assuming you remember to clean all the dead leaves and bird turds off the windscreen before you set out, what's the view like? A thinly-veiled graphics category, in other words, but jolly important all the same.
It may seem to have everything, but once you've set off, and you've been on the road for a while, do you relish every second that you're behind the wheel? Or do you want to keep stopping at the services? Or perhaps you'd rather just take the bus instead, eh?
A competitive edge is most important where driving's concerned, both in real life and on the Speccy. So do the other cars put up a decent fight, or do they just seem to be part of the scenery (if, indeed, there is any)?
Kicking off, these are the ones where you get a bird's-eye view of the course and see your car as a little blob hammering round the track (which may scroll if it doesn't all fit onto the screen at once). The basic idea takes its cue from a vintage coin-op called Super Sprint, and you can sometimes get anything up to 29 players on the screen at one time (giving them the edge where competitiveness is concerned). They do tend to lose out graphically though, as there isn't much scope for scrolling 3D roads etc.
We're heading into dicey territory here, as we could start wobbling on about scrolling shoot-'em-ups if we're not careful. They do generally scroll however, but they're a bit weird as you don't actually have to worry about steering. All you really have to do is get the speed right when going over ramps and maybe launch the odd missile now and again. Motorbikes, rather than cars, tend to feature prominently in this sort of game, which seems reasonable enough as they look a bit thin when viewed from the rear. One thing we've got to be careful of here is bicycles - they seem to crop up in these rather a lot and, as we already know, they don't count.
These are the most common by 'miles' (yuk yuk), being those games where you see your car on the screen in front of you from a position behind and slightly above it, and with the road coming towards you in 3D. They all started in the arcades with stuff like Pole Position and moved onto the Speccy via Chequered Flag and later things like Outrun. And, of course, there was the classic Road Racer in '87. They're generally good fun, but can be a bit samey and tend to be just a case of pressing Left and Right at suitable moments. And an element of violence tends to creep in - you often get a gun or something mounted on your car to bag other vehicles with.
With a theme as wide ranging as 'driving' we're bound to come across one or two miscreants that don't really fit into any of the previous categories (the scamps). Well, I have anyway. First of all there are ones like Hard Drivin' and Stunt Car Racer where you get a 3D view out of the window. Then there are the vertically-scrolling ones such as LED Storm which are really a cross between looking-at-it-from-behind ones and looking-at-it-from-the-top ones. And there are boring 'management' ones like Grand Prix. Best forgotten, those.
| Chequered Flag | ||
|---|---|---|
| Psion | ||
So here we are. The official First-Ever Driving Game. So what's it like then? Well, it's one of those where you get the view from the driver's seat as you race round the track (with a choice of things like 'Micro Drive' and 'Psion Park' as well as genuine ones like Silverstone) in your McFaster Special (or Psion Pegasus or Ferrati Turbo). There are obstacles to avoid, like oil, glass and water, but not much in the way of competition from other cars. In fact there aren't any other cars at all. It's just you out there, and it gets damned lonely at times. All you can do is race against the clock, trying to beat your lap record. On the plus side, the car handles extremely well considering its vintage, and the road is one of the best around (although there are no hills). There are gears to fiddle about with if you choose the second or third car, and there's a great crash effect too. (Even better than the one in Flight Simulation.) |
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| Drive: | 74% | |
| Visibility: | 59% | |
| Roadholding: | 63% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 46% | |
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| Overall: | 64% | |
| The Duel - Test Drive II | ||
|---|---|---|
| Accolade | ||
Accolade seem quite keen on driving games, don't they? Which is a bit of a shame, as they're nearly always crap. At least, on the Spectrum they are. On things like the PC they're a lot better, and that's where Test Drive first cropped up. The Spectrum conversion is a cut-down version and, predictably, it's rubbish. The graphics are hopeless, for a start. They re all sorts of horrible colours, and there are only about two different things to see. And they give no impression of 'speed' at all (but a superb impression of 'slowness'). You're supposed to be driving either a Porsche or a Ferrari, you see, but the graphics make it seem more like a Number 29 bus. The idea is that you're meant to be racing against another chap, who's controlled by the computer, and at the same time being chased by a police car. Er, what else is crap about it? Oh yes, the collision detection. It's useless! If another car so much as appears on the screen you crash into it. In other words, it's chronic. And with so many others to see, lets waste no more time on it. |
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| Drive: | 38% | |
| Visibility: | 40% | |
| Roadholding: | 52% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 48% | |
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| Overall: | 48% | |
| Super Hang-On | ||
|---|---|---|
| Electric Dreams | ||
This one did rather well when it first came out, I seem to remember. It's a very motorbikey sort of game where you've got to race against lots of other bikes round a series of courses. And it's these courses that are the key to the whole thing - they're brill! There are huge hills which you climb up and then plummet down the other side of, and there are even (I seem to remember) hills combined with corners which are particularly disconcerting. Your bike is nice too. It's multi-coloured and leans over superbly on corners. What else? Your fellow riders are pretty hard to beat, which helps. And that's about it really. |
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| Drive: | 91% | |
| Visibility: | 83% | |
| Roadholding: | 92% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 85% | |
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| Overall: | 91% | |
| 4x4 Off-Road Racing | ||
|---|---|---|
| Epyx | ||
It's a bit American-looking, this one. And that means that you can't just hop into your vehicle and hit the road. Oh no. First you've got to walk your driver between two shops and buy all the bits and pieces you'll need along the way. These include fuel, maps, spare parts and any luxury extras that may tickle your fancy. You get to choose the terrain you'll be racing across as well and this ranges from deserts to icy places. If it is American (I'm not too sure), this would account for the terribleness of the graphics. The sprites are weedy-looking things, and the choice of colours is appalling. On the other hand they are extremely fast, and this gives the game the edge over quite a few others. You get a great driving feeling, especially when you hit a bump in the road and go flying up into the air. The courses are nicely designed as well, and have novel obstacles such as sticky mud to get through. |
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| Drive: | 80% | |
| Visibility: | 53% | |
| Roadholding: | 71% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 65% | |
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| Overall: | 72% | |
| TT Racer | ||
|---|---|---|
| Digital Integration | ||
This one appeared ages ago, produced by a company that's better known for its flight sims. And, to tell the truth, it looks a lot more like a flight sim than a driving game. You're on a motorbike, racing against lots of other motorbikes, but rather than the usual view from behind the bike you get an over-the-handlebars job. This means that when you lean over round a corner the handlebars stay horizontal while the horizon tilts over, and when you pull a wheelie the horizon wobbles up and down. It's a bit hard to explain, but think of flight sims and you should get the general drift. This gives it a very realistic feel, which is helped by having lots of gears and dials to worry about. There are loads of other complexities, like an ability to connect lots of Spectrums together and get them to race against each other, not to mention hundreds of options to adjust various things. |
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| Drive: | 82% | |
| Visibility: | 69% | |
| Roadholding: | 85% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 90% | |
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| Overall: | 83% | |
| OutRun | ||
|---|---|---|
| US Gold | ||
Here's a controversial one. When I reviewed it ages ago I thought it was quite good, while everyone else thought it was utter tosh. In fact, it's quite surprising that I'm still doing reviews today. So let's be diplomatic, and say that it's 'aged' quite a lot. The idea, as you'll know if you've seen the arcade version, is to drive along a series of roads getting to the end of each one within a time limit. Not too thrilling, you might think. But the success of the coin-op lay in its corkingly fast graphics and hydraulic cabinet, neither of which have made it to the Spectrum. It looks okay in stills, sure, but everything moves horribly slowly, especially when you go into one of the tunnel things. And the multiload really doesn't help at all. There are some nice 128K tunes though. |
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| Drive: | 55% | |
| Visibility: | 69% | |
| Roadholding: | 70% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 45% | |
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| Overall: | 61% | |
| Championship Sprint | ||
|---|---|---|
| Electric Dreams | ||
This is the sequel to Super Sprint, which just happens to have been the first-ever looking-at-it-from-the-top driving game. (Or it would have been if everyone hadn't done rip-offs before Electric Dreams got the official version out.) This means there are four little cars driving round a series of courses, up to two of which can be controlled by players. Four would have been nice, and perfectly possible. There are spanners to collect which allow you to choose add-ons at the end of the race if you pick up enough. So far so good, but surely there's more to it than this? And indeed there is. Sprint cunningly incorporates a course editor with which you can build up your own custom courses, laden with chicanes, bridges and nasty corners. What fun, eh? So really it's just a plain, ordinary looking-at-it-from-the-top one with a bit of extra pizazz. I used to find them fun, but not any more. Sigh. It's better with a friend, but not much. |
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| Drive: | 65% | |
| Visibility: | 40% | |
| Roadholding: | 71% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 78% | |
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| Overall: | 69% | |
| Scalextric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Virgin | ||
Did you have Scalextric when you were a kid? Me, I was lucky to get a clip round the ear. I remember gazing enviously at other people's lengths of black plastic, hoping that one day I'd be able to get one of my own, someday. Unfortunately I haven't yet, as Virgin's attempt at a conversion is yet another driving letdown. To be sure, you can assemble tracks from an unlimited selection of pieces without having to worry about running out of left-hand bends. But once you get down to the racing bit you find that you've wasted your time. It's a two-player looking-at-it-from-behind game, with the screen split between the two players. Clever stuff, but unfortunately the graphical content is minimal and there's not really much to the driving either. One major problem is that once someone's got into the lead he's virtually guaranteed to be the winner as long as both players keep their foot to the floor all the way round. Very boring indeed. |
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| Drive: | 51% | |
| Visibility: | 31% | |
| Roadholding: | 41% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 61% | |
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| Overall: | 51% | |
| Chase HQ | ||
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| Ocean | ||
Crikey, this one's good. On the face of it it's just another looking-at-it-from-behind game, and a blatant attempt to knock OutRun off its rather wobbly perch. In actual fact though, it's a conversion of a fabulous coin-op and rates as one of the best driving games on the Speccy. Actually, it probably is the best. What you've got to do, you see, is pursue various criminals around in your car. Having caught up with them you get a neat animated sequence where your co-driver leans out of the window and sticks on the flashing light, and then it's time to run the other guy off the road by bashing into him. |
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| Drive: | 93% | |
| Visibility: | 89% | |
| Roadholding: | 92% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 90% | |
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| Overall: | 93% | |
| Enduro Racer | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ocean | ||
This looks a bit like Super Hang-On, but there are a few key differences. First of all it's a bit older. Second of all it's more of a beat-the-clock game than a racing one. And third of all it's not quite so good. Oh, and fourth of all there are obstacles on the road. |
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| Drive: | 83% | |
| Visibility: | 86% | |
| Roadholding: | 79% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 66% | |
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| Overall: | 85% | |
| Hard Drivin' | ||
|---|---|---|
| Domark | ||
If you haven't heard of this one you must be... erm, well, I'm sure you've got your reasons. It's an extremely famous coin-op conversion of a game that wowed 'em all in the arcades (most of them, anyway) with its solid 3D graphics and unnerving realism. Playing the arcade original is more or less just like driving a real car, with gears, a clutch and a proper steering wheel. There's a choice of speed or stunt track, the latter featuring a loop-the-loop and a drawbridge. And it really is brilliant fun. |
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| Drive: | 70% | |
| Visibility: | 91% | |
| Roadholding: | 67% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 81% | |
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| Overall: | 84% | |
| Rallycross Simulator | ||
|---|---|---|
| CodeMasters | ||
It's a scrolling looking-at-it-from-the-top game, this, and that's about all there is to say about it. It's neatly put together, but very flimsy and not terribly playable. The main problem is that it uses Up, Down, Left and Right keys rather than the rotation system we've got used to with this sort of thing, making it fiddly to get to grips with. Grand Prix Simulator, an older Codies game, is a lot better. |
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| Drive: | 59% | |
| Visibility: | 65% | |
| Roadholding: | 71% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 75% | |
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| Overall: | 70% | |
| Rally Simulator | ||
|---|---|---|
| Zeppelin | ||
This is almost identical to the one above. |
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| Drive: | 59% | |
| Visibility: | 60% | |
| Roadholding: | 70% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 75% | |
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| Overall: | 69% | |
| American Turbo King | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mastertronic | ||
This is a vertically-scrolling driving game where you've got to negotiate various obstacles and shoot things. Quite frankly, it's crap. The car is virtually impossible to control (even worse if you try it with the Magnum Lightphaser), there's nothing to hold your attention and the whole thing just doesn't work. Yuck. |
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| Drive: | 40% | |
| Visibility: | 74% | |
| Roadholding: | 38% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 50% | |
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| Overall: | 51% | |
| ATV Simulator | ||
|---|---|---|
| CodeMasters | ||
Hurray! One of the best bargains ever, ATV Sim sees you and a chum sitting astride a four-wheel bike thing, lurching over a set of courses. The trick is to drive flat out all the way, but pull wheelies and do jumps when necessary so you don't come a cropper at obstacles. It's intensely competitive but gets frustratingly difficult on higher levels (when you start getting attacked by birds and things). A must. |
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| Drive: | 90% | |
| Visibility: | 79% | |
| Roadholding: | 91% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 92% | |
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| Overall: | 90% | |
| Super Stock Car | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mastertronic | ||
This is pretty identical to Rallycross Sim and Rally Sim too. Only it's the worst of the three, with awful controls and cars that are far too big and unmanoeuvrable to drive properly. By all means take a peek at the first two, but 'steer' clear of this one. |
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| Drive: | 45% | |
| Visibility: | 58% | |
| Roadholding: | 38% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 55% | |
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| Overall: | 43% | |
| Twin Turbo V8 | ||
|---|---|---|
| CodeMasters | ||
One of the few looking-at-it-from-behind bargains and a complete waste of time. The road weaves about quite well, but the graphics are awful and there's nothing to do apart from moving left and right and laughing a lot. It's crap. |
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| Drive: | 59% | |
| Visibility: | 60% | |
| Roadholding: | 70% | |
| First-Off-At-The-Lights Factor: | 75% | |
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| Overall: | 45% | |
| EVERY SINGLE DRIVING GAME EVER | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (believe that and you'll believe anything) | ||||
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| 3D Stock Car Championship | Silverbird |
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| 4x4 Off-Road Racing | Epyx |
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| American Turbo King | Mastertronics |
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| APB | Tengen (Domark) |
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| Battlecars | Summit |
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| Beach Buggy Simulator | Silverbird |
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| Buggy Blast | Firebird |
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| Buggy Boy | Elite |
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| Championship Sprint | Activision |
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| Chase HQ | Ocean |
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| Continental Circus | Virgin |
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| Crazy Cars | Titus |
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| Crazy Cars II | Titus |
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| Cycles, The | Accolade |
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| Deathchase | Micromega |
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| Duel - Test Drive II, The | Accolade |
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| Dukes Of Hazard | Elite |
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| Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge | Martech |
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| Enduro | Activision |
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| Enduro Racer | Activision |
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| Fire And Forget | Titus |
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| Formula One Simulator | Mastertronic |
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| Full Throttle | Micromega |
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| Future Bike Simulator | Hi-Tec |
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| Juggernaut | CRL |
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| Grand Prix Circuit | Accolade |
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| Grand Prix Master | Dinamic |
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| Grand Prix Simulator | CodeMasters |
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| Hard Drivin' | Tengen (Domark) |
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| Hot Rod | Activision |
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| International Speedway | Silverbird |
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| Italian Super Car | CodeMasters |
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| Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart | Virgin |
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| Knight Driver | Hewson |
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| Knight Rider | Ocean |
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| Last Duel | US Gold |
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| LED Storm | US Gold |
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| Maze Death | PSS |
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| Motorbike Madness | Mastertronic |
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| Motor Massacre | Gremlin |
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| Nigel Mansell's Grand Prix | Martech |
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| OutRun | US Gold |
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| Overlander | Elite |
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| Pass Your Driving Test | Audiogenic |
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| Pole Position | Atarisoft |
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| Power Drift | Activision |
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| Rally Cross Simulator | CodeMasters |
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| Rally Driver | Alternative |
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| Rally Simulator | Zeppelin |
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| Road Blaster | US Gold |
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| Road Racer | Ocean |
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| Scalextric | Virgin |
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| Speed King II | Mastertronic |
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| Spy Hunter | US Gold |
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| Street Hawk | Ocean |
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| Stunt Bike Simulator | Silverbird |
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| Stunt Car Racer | Microstyle |
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| Super Cycle | US Gold |
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| Super Hang-On | Electric Dreams |
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| Super Scramble Simulator | Gremlin |
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| Super Stock Car | Mastertronic |
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| Taxi! | Digital Integration |
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| Techno Cop | Gremlin |
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| Tranz Am | Ultimate |
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| TT Racer | Digital Integration |
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| Turbo Bike | Alternative |
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| Turbo OutRun | US Gold |
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| Twin Turbo V8 | CodeMasters |
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| WEC Le Mans | Ocean |
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| Wheelie | Microsphere |
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