Stunt car racer
Stunt car racer is a very non-standard racing game in which you drive a car around a rollercoaster like track. There are four divisions with different difficulty levels, each containing three drivers and two tracks. You start in division four and you have to compete to make it to the higher levels.
Apart from driving around the tracks trying to beat your opponent you also have to succesfully navigate any obstacles that you come across.
There are plenty of obstacles like ramps, jumps and even a draw-bridge! You can’t just go at max speed because it’s easy to fall off the track and you have to time some jumps so that you land at the correct angle to avoid damage to your car. If you take too much damage, indicated by a crack on your rollbar at the top of the screen, you’ve wrecked your car and it’s race over.
Before you start the competition you can view and practice on any track and you’re gonna need it.
After that you can start the actual race season which consists of six races in total. Not all of these involve you however so actually you only have to race four times per season. Each race you will face one opponent in a three lap race. The winner of the race gets two points and you can get one point for the fastest lap.
At the end of the season the one with the most points gets promoted to a higher division.
The graphics in all versions of the game are fairly simple, your opponents car is represented by a triangle with four blocks as wheels, but they get the job done. It has to be noted however that the PC version is the absolute worst there is especially for the hardware that it (even then) contained. The track is hardly visable because the track and the background have the same color and when viewing the tracks you can barely see what it is supposed to represent.
Sounds are limited to your engine revving and crashing sounds nothing spectacular.
The Amiga and Atari ST version both have an option to link 2 computers for multiplay however I have no idea how this works because when you activate that option it simply says “looking for host”. It probably has to be done by serial cable but since I do not own two of each of these machines there is no way for me to test it.
Either of these two version can be recommended because they are practically identical.
Overal rating: 7/10
This game was released for five different systems here are some notes:
| Amiga | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed with winUAE v0.9.91. This version has all the options including the computer link multiplay. |
| Amstrad CPC | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed with CPCE 1.56. This has all pretty much the same as the other version but it does have an option to make the screen usefull for a green screen with which the Amstrad was sometimes equipped with. |
| Atari ST | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed with SainT v1.10. This version is exactly the same as the Amiga one. |
| C64 | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed with CCS64 V2.0 win. This is the tape version of the game. |
| DOS | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed on a DOS and Windows PC. Supports only EGA graphics and PC beeper sound. The track and background have the same color making it hard to see the track sometimes. Also when viewing the track you can barely see it properly. |
| ZX Spectrum | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed with emuZwin 2.5. The zip contains a version for zx48 and zx128, the 48 is mostly the same but lacks proper sound and some options like hall of game and multiplay. |
| Date added | Nov-27-2004 14:10 |
| Name | Stunt car racer |
| Developer | Micro style |
| Publisher | Micro style |
| First released | 1989 |
| Genre | Racing |
