The arrival of the 16-bit computers like the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga really saw 3D games come into their own. Possibly the most famous and highly regarded of these was MicroStyle's Stunt Car Racer. Programmed by the king of computer racing games, the legendary Geoff Crammond of REVS and Formula One Grand Prix fame, it was released in 1989 to widespread acclaim. But Microprose (owners of the MicroStyle label) felt that there was still a little bit of life left in the 8bits and persuaded Geoff, along with graphic artist John Cumming, to do a Commodore 64 port of the game too. Nobody even thought this was possible so there were a lot of surprised faces not only when it was released but also when they saw how accomplished it was. Some 18 years later the XXL team decided to convert the game to the Atari 8-bit, using the Commodore 64 version as a base, and even released the game for free!

Stunt Car Racer was completely different from anything that had come before it, it's like a racing game crossed with a roller coaster. Using a first person perspective, you race around a track high up in the air and must try not to fall off! If you do a giant crane has to hoist you back up and you lose valuable time. The idea of the game is to compete against opponents in a league style format trying to get promoted to, and subsequently win, the first division championship. Each race is set over three laps and you get points for winning as well as setting the fastest lap time. The key to the game is to use your turbos effectively and make sure you don't miss the big jumps.

Crashing doesn't just lose you time though, it also damages your car. If your car gets to much damage, which is represented by cracks appearing on the screen, then unfortunately you have to retire and forfeit the race. If you damage the car really badly this handicap is also carried over into the next race too, which certainly makes sure that you'll be more careful with your car here than you are in most other racing games! Although this might make the game seem like its very much a simulator rather than a racer, the simple controls and short fast races are much more like an arcade game. I suppose it could be argued that Stunt Car Racer is one of the very games to truly bridge that gap between a driving simulator and a racing game.

The 3D wireframe graphics are utterly amazing here, they are both fast and smooth with seriously impressive frame rate. In fact it's actually faster and smoother than the Commodore 64 original that it's based upon! The HUD around the edge of the screen also looks really good and helps bring in some colour to the proceedings. The audio is also very good and kicks off with a great rendition of "The Race" on the title screen followed by some authentic in game effects. The controls are absolutely spot-on and this is a game that you will come back to time after time.

Do you know what? I'm not sure there's anything I didn't like about this game! I suppose I could moan about it needing 128k of memory, meaning I can't play it on my lovely XE Game System (my preferred model of the A8) but perhaps that would be a little unfair, especially when I also own a 130XE. I would like this to be release this on cartridge with a proper box and instructions too, but again, I can't really fault them too much for this as they would no doubt have to pay a hefty fee for the official license.

Without doubt, Stunt Car Racer is still one of my favourite Atari ST games and a title that I spent a great deal of time with in my youth. This Atari 8-bit version is surprisingly close to the 16-bit original and is unquestionably one of the most technically impressive games released for the system. When you play games like this it's almost impossible to comprehend that this hardware was originally designed in the 1970s! If you own an Atari 8bit and some sort of flash device then you should be downloading Stunt Car Racer the moment you finish reading this review.