Original Release: Konami, 1984, Arcade
Other Releases: MSX/NES (1985), PS1 (Konami Arcade Classics – 1999), PC (fan remake – 2003), Nintendo DS (Konami Classics Series – 2007), Xbox 360/PC (2010)
Konami’s first racing game doesn’t feature any fighting or weapons; it’s a simple racer that only has you press left and right and vary your speed to dodge obstacles that spawn in while avoiding the track walls.
Road Fighter (PC, Brain Games, 2003)
Where to Buy: Freeware (official site)
Review by: C. M0use
I don’t like to complain about Brain Games’ MSX remake output (which is excellent and free), but Road Fighter seems like kind of a poor choice unless you’re planning on adding a LOT to it. This remake, which appears to have been thrown together for a “game jam” sort of competition, is really just an overlay of better graphics and tuned-up music with fewer levels than most of the original versions of the game have.
It’s also the first of their releases that I’ve seen have a major bug: you can’t remap buttons or the game crashes to Windows, so you’ll need to use something like Joy2Key if you want to play with a gamepad. And it’s actually a bit of a “de-make” as the original versions of Road Fighter had a variety of tracks in different terrain, this one just gives you three different layouts in the same racetrack setting. You can only play each individually to “time attack” for a better score.
Cars and oil slicks like to spawn in at just the wrong spot to be unavoidable, eventually it feels more like you’re playing a slot machine hoping for a run that’s actually doable. Which is likely intentional design given it only has three levels that only last a couple of minutes each.
An alright little reflex-tester, but more of a simplistic arcade action game with a car theme than a legit racer.
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