Stunt Car Racer
for C64
Also available for: Amiga (OCS/ECS)

01.jpg
std:Popular Vote:
3/6
Company: Microstyle
Year: 1989
Genre: Simulation, Sport
Theme: Driving / Multiplayer
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
Views: 20179
Review by std (2003-05-01)
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To be sincere, I was planning something else for this review. I was convinced I had the geOS disks in my C64 ROMs collection, but I couldn't find it (it gets harder and harder with a 2000+ disk collection).

Err...I...found it :) and it was, as I assumed, broken. Instead, I found something more interesting - one of Geoff Crammond's first games: Stunt Car Racer.

You might have heard about this. In fact, I played it on the PC a little bit, but since I didn't have a PC at the time, my stunt adventure took place on the Commodore machine. And I liked it!
In fact, you can't fail to like Stunt Car Racer. If you don't know the idea, here it goes. You are dropped on a race track, with one opponent near you. There are no walls - if you go past the margins: bye-bye! But that's not the only thing. What makes the game so darn interesting is the fact that the cars have a dazzling speed, and, besides that, the tracks have dazzling jumps. It reminds me of the hop-scotch...

Speaking of hop-scotch, you will find the graphics quite poor in terms of racetrack detail, but the in-car view is decent. In fact, it's well ahead of its times.

And not only is the car-view ahead of its times. The game is well ahead, too. There are racing seasons, and they are organized in four divisions. The fourth is the easiest, and you start off there. As you improve, the difficulty of the tracks grows, and so does the strength of your opponent.

There is also a design idea which I haven't really found in other games; while the cars are similar, there is one thing that makes the players different: the way they use turbos. Turbos are unlimited, but it makes your car less controlable and this means that you have to be careful.

What makes this game even more playable and long-lasting is the multiplayer option. It is, indeed, impressive how a game that appeared in the C64 era has graphics that look even better than PC games which appeared some time after it. There's only one problem with it: the tracks are huge for its time, and this means that Stunt... is pretty slow, and the sensation of speed is quite inexistant. Still, the jumps have a lot of spectacle and the sensation of competition is well in it; play!

Comments (8) [Post comment]

hrolli:

What a great game - love it until today.
Was one of the first games I played on the Amiga 500 of my older brother.

A must have back in the days!

HRolli

Mr Creosote:
We do not distribute virus infected disks for obvious reasons.
MasawVx:
can I get the image with the ID 2096
james:
oh my god - i remember playing this game when i was 5 years old!!! does anyone know where to get this from? (ps im 19 now so thats AGES ago!)
Anderz:

Hi!

I have this game on Amiga 500.
It`s wery fun. But suddenly it don`t work. The game is wery difficult. Espeacely when i couldn`t save. I wish i could get this game to work.

blommaert steve:
i never had a better time in my live than on a amiga
The Rumpled Academic:
I love this game on my Amiga, but I can never get past league 3. This game is very, very hard once you get past league 2. Beware.
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