Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament

The Good
The thing about Micro Machines 2 is that it is an incredibly amusing game. It is about racing mini-versions of several vehicles (everything from monster trucks to helicopters) over regular household racing courses, like the kitchen table, bathtub, etc.

The racing is done from a top-down perspective, which is slightly awkward yet playable on the PC version, where the size of the display and graphics resolution makes things easier to see than on the Gameboy. Said graphics are bright and colorful, and the whole thing captures the plastic-like world of the once mighty Micro Machines toy empire.

However the hot features in the game are the head-to-head vs racing, and it's multiplayer tournament options which makes it a blast to play against friends. Why's that? And how can a top-down racer accomodate more than 1 player on a single computer? Well, it's because the 2p mode doesn't depend of who wins the race or who doesn't. Instead it has a score-marker that goes up whenever you manage to leave your opponent off the screen, this makes the races extremely nerve-wrecking as every mistake counts, and as you frantically try to slam your opponent against some obstacle, it's great fun believe me!

Other than that, the game comes with a full-fledged editor that even allows you to make your own cars. Not only was it powerful, but it was also simple enough for a kid to master in seconds. One of my greatest joys with this game was to craft a dark and brooding "Bat-Cave" track filled with jumps and pits complete with a Bat-mobile to race on it!!

The Bad
All multiplayer action goes in one PC which sucks since this game would have been a winner on office lans. I remember this thing being installed on some computers over my school's lan... man, if only it had been networkable...

Also, the graphics are cute and all, but could definitely have used more detail.

The Bottom Line
Great fun for multiplayer racing back on it's day. Sure, sometimes it was just too damn cute when you had Doom or Mortal Kombat around. But nothing gives as much bang for the buck as this!..... well, maybe Slick's 'n slides, but this game is still a fun diversion. Perfect for covert office gaming.