REVIEW: Rad Racer 1987 NES
	By: SquareSoft Type: Racing Players: 1 Difficulty: Normal

Yes, that’s right. This game is by Square. The people that brought you Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana. The Role-Playing masters. And it is a car-racing game. One of the first of its kind. By today’s standards, “Rad Racer” might be deemed laughable. You have a grand total of two cars to choose from, it is strictly time-based (which means you aren’t really racing against the other cars, just trying to dodge them,) and once you’ve mastered the basics on how to corner properly and avoid collision with other vehicles, you can finish the game without too much hassle. Most people would shrug off the primitive graphics and say that it is a game from the dark ages, and is better left forgotten. But we must remember that these are the early days of gaming. In the days of 64-bit realistic gaming, I still look back on this little 8-bit marvel and say “Wow. They really COULD do 3D back then.”.

Okay, so you start up the game and you have two cars to choose from. You can either drive the red sports Ferrari-type one, or the F1 racer. After playing with them both, there really isn’t a lot of difference, although I think the Ferrari corners a little better and the F1 goes a bit faster. After that you’re shown the map of the level you are about to start. Throughout the level, there are checkpoints, which are shown on the map. All you have to do is go through all of the checkpoints without the time running out, and you’ll advance to the next level. Sound easy? It’s not. The main pain comes from the other vehicles who share the road with you. The other main obstacles are the roadsigns, trees, etc. on the side of the road. A collision with any of these will not damage your car. It will not make you lose a life. But whenever you crash, your car slowly moves back into the centre of the road before taking off again, and this takes up precious seconds from your time. So basically, the aim is to get to the end of a track without crashing.

Graphics throughout Rad Racer are actually quite inventive and well-produced for their day. The 3D effects of the road are actually very impressive, and best noticed when a crashed car is moving back into the centre of the road. The engine almost seems like an early version of the Super Nintendo’s Mode 7. Sound is a mixed bag. The car engine noises are extremely annoying, but one cool feature is being able to change the tune with the up and down buttons on the D-pad. Or you can turn the music off. Overall, I believe that this little game is worth more than it would usually be given credit for. Square did an impressive job in creating a 3D engine for the 8–bit system, and the result is a polished and fun game. - Peter jenkins 83%

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