jesus christ activision sure knows how to make tense games for the 2600. On average, this game is like 6-7 seconds long, which sounds pathetic on paper but dear lord getting that time down is an absolute struggle.
So here's why this game is kinda nuts: there's a tachometer at the bottom of your screen. If it goes past 3/4ths of your screen at any time, you blow up and die instantaneously. Pushing the button on the controller is your gas and your gas moves the meter up. Pushing down the left direction on the joystick puts you in a clutch state where the tachometer is so sensitive to gas that pretty much holding both the button and left at the same time at any point is a death sentence. Releasing left after pressing it down brings you up a gear, where you go faster with a slower tachometer. Basically you need to do as close to frame-perfect button presses and joystick inputs/releases as you feasibly can, and if you do it right, you get a good time, and if you do it even slightly wrong you either die in a horrific car explosion or get a shit time that brings great dishonor to your drag racing career. The manual's challenge of getting under 6 seconds to join the World Class Dragster Club is no simple task either. Considering the frame-perfect theoretical perfect time is 5.57, there's a shockingly small margin of error to join that prestigious, 40-years-defunct club (and if you say you've gotten a 5.51 before, you are a liar!). It took me dozens upon dozens of attempts to be able to just barely squeeze out a 5.94 that I swear to god felt like luck as I did the same thing I usually did for a good run, I just must have happened to have pressed the buttons at a more optimal time. Though I guess since the game is only 6 seconds long on a good run those dozens of attempts was still only like 20-30 minutes of grind. I felt like I spent more time waiting for the starting countdown to finish (or prematurely exploding by failing to properly feather the gas during the countdown as a way to get a good start) than actually racing, which is kinda eh but it is what it is.
It's certainly a deep and thought-out game that has a high skill ceiling to work up towards for sure. With how much frame-perfection is emphasized here, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a game to sew the seeds of speedrunning or just general high-level gamer tech to the still-blossoming Atari gamer crowd. But it does mean that this game is definitely geared towards that certain type of player, so if you aren't into personal time attack grinds there's pretty much less game time for you in this game than the time it took you to read this whole ramble in the first place. Fascinating!
So here's why this game is kinda nuts: there's a tachometer at the bottom of your screen. If it goes past 3/4ths of your screen at any time, you blow up and die instantaneously. Pushing the button on the controller is your gas and your gas moves the meter up. Pushing down the left direction on the joystick puts you in a clutch state where the tachometer is so sensitive to gas that pretty much holding both the button and left at the same time at any point is a death sentence. Releasing left after pressing it down brings you up a gear, where you go faster with a slower tachometer. Basically you need to do as close to frame-perfect button presses and joystick inputs/releases as you feasibly can, and if you do it right, you get a good time, and if you do it even slightly wrong you either die in a horrific car explosion or get a shit time that brings great dishonor to your drag racing career. The manual's challenge of getting under 6 seconds to join the World Class Dragster Club is no simple task either. Considering the frame-perfect theoretical perfect time is 5.57, there's a shockingly small margin of error to join that prestigious, 40-years-defunct club (and if you say you've gotten a 5.51 before, you are a liar!). It took me dozens upon dozens of attempts to be able to just barely squeeze out a 5.94 that I swear to god felt like luck as I did the same thing I usually did for a good run, I just must have happened to have pressed the buttons at a more optimal time. Though I guess since the game is only 6 seconds long on a good run those dozens of attempts was still only like 20-30 minutes of grind. I felt like I spent more time waiting for the starting countdown to finish (or prematurely exploding by failing to properly feather the gas during the countdown as a way to get a good start) than actually racing, which is kinda eh but it is what it is.
It's certainly a deep and thought-out game that has a high skill ceiling to work up towards for sure. With how much frame-perfection is emphasized here, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a game to sew the seeds of speedrunning or just general high-level gamer tech to the still-blossoming Atari gamer crowd. But it does mean that this game is definitely geared towards that certain type of player, so if you aren't into personal time attack grinds there's pretty much less game time for you in this game than the time it took you to read this whole ramble in the first place. Fascinating!
Just gotta start in second gear, bro
Basically a game where you try and beat your previous record, and nothing more. You play it in less than 10 seconds a session, and you really gotta jerk that joystick just right. It's fun to play two player and see who can get the best time.
hi-score game of choice for lead poisoning victims, florida-wide.
but bro the human condition tho