Previous Next

Over the last few months several classic games have been re-released as budget titles. Now from Firebird comes American Road Race, formally an Activision full-price car game which I believe was originally called The Great American Cross Country Road Race.

You drive a very fast sports car across North America in one of four races - which you select when the game loads.

On offer are Los Angeles to New York, Seattle to Miami, San Francisco to Washington or the US tour. In the latter you race through every city marked on the map.

Once the route has been selected, the map screen will appear and you have to appear and you have to check road and weather conditions and set your time of departure.

Watch out for police speed traps, night driving, bad weather, collisions with other drivers and a multitude of other obstacles placed in your path. My major problem was over-revving the engine and blowing it up.

The joystick controls take a little getting used to. By pressing the fire button and moving the joystick several variations on movement and changing gear come into play.

You must also make sure you refuel your car at regular intervals. Gas pumps appear every 100 miles, and all you have to do is stop next to one and wait.

If you run out of fuel don't worry too much. A gas pump will appear sooner than the normal 100 miles.

The gameplay is all right, but I wouldn't class it as one of the most addictive games I have ever played. The car's movement reminded me of a game I bought several years ago called Baja Buggies - which was adequate but not brilliant.

Sound effects are not stimulating, but again I can't really criticise them because a car engine can only really sound like a car engine. The police car's siren was a monotonous drone that got on my nerves very quickly.

The feature I liked the most appeared with the credits. A car zooms on from the left of the screen creating a massive dust cloud which clears to reveal another set of credits.

As a budget game, Road Race offers excellent value for money if you are new to Atari computers and don't already own a number of car racing games.