R.C. Pro-Am

The Good
The arcade style makes this game very enjoyable. It has a good sense of speed, loose yet like-able physics so its easy to pick up and play, and since its from Rare, it has a charm that isn't matched. The game has good graphics for 1988, and due to the menus and environments, its the best way to describe a "keep it simple" game.

The Bad
There isn't any save function so you had to restart from the beginning each time. There isn't a multiplayer option either. But my biggest gripe is the same as everybody else's. In the game, you drive a red car. Your opponents drive light green, baby blue and orange/peach cars. The green and blue cars aren't the problem; now, I don't know if this is a glitch or it was coded this way, but the orange car just randomly boosts up to the alleged speed of 127 MPH, when even with all the upgrades, the fastest car goes 108 MPH. It is impossible to win.

The Bottom Line
A very fun classic game that you'll go back to, with a charm that doesn't last in today's racing games. Shame it won't be on Virtual Console. Still, it's pretty cheap to buy, even boxed.

The Good
The controls are really easy to understand, you tap the D-pad which makes your car steer in that direction, that is all you need to know. If you are used to modern games then this is probably going to sound odd because you don't have a 100% control over your car and you just shift between preset directions, but believe me it works a lot better then it sounds and I never missed my beloved joystick at all.

The game is really fast and has lots of variety, every track is different because they get longer, dirtier or just harder to drive on due to a lot of turns. While driving you must also pay attention to items that you need to pick up, puddles of water and other obstacles that slow you down and of course the boosters that send you flying forward. It's exactly the over the top fun that I like about racing games because if I wanted to drive realistically I'd go out and buy a car, but I want to play a game, so I play Mario Kart and R.C. Pro-Am.

I like the fact that you don't have to win in order to continue to the next track, as long as you don't finish last you can move on and even if you lose there are quite a few continues available for when you get unlucky. There are four cars on the track (one of which is you), so unless you finish last you will always be rewarded with a cup (gold for first, silver for second and bronze for third) which is a nice way to motivate players to get better. It's a bit sad that there aren't unlimited continues, but at least having some is a pretty good thing for NES game standards.

The Bad
The AI is a little bit too good and they avoid almost every hazard and pick up every booster and item they can get if you don't interfere with them. This also causes the problem that you could lost a match solely because you missed a single booster or didn't get to pick up one of the many items on the field, which is even more frustrating if that happens in the final round or when you're short on continues. Hitting the AI isn't quite easy either because they avoid collisions.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the best racing games ever which should be quite obvious because I usually hate racing games. Once you get used to the controls there is nothing stopping you from having a lot of fun on the thirty-something tracks although I heard that completing this game can be quite hard.

If you like funny racing games like Mario Kart, then you will most likely enjoy this game because it is just as fast and chaotic. If you want realism in your games then this is probably not the platform you should be looking at in the first place. Good luck trying to find this game, it's rather hard to spell the name right.

The Good
it's challenging, well-made, and there's no nintendo-lag(where too many things on-screen at once slows everything down). if you've never played it before, this is waht the game is like: you race as the red car against blue, green, and yellow. the race is over when someone completes the necessary number of laps, it varies from 2-9, and you only lose a life if you are in last place when that happens. this is no problem if you're in the lead, but if someone is way out ahead of you and they pass, you don't get a chance to catch up. when you pass you are rewarded with a trophy to put in your trophy room. before each track you're informed of the number of laps and the track condition which can be anything from poor, very wet, fair, good, very good, fast, very fast, slippery, or raining. this should give you a general idea of what the track will have in it: puddles that slow you down, clouds making moving puddles, oil slicks that make you spin out and crash if you hit a wall, arrows that give you bursts of speed, or maybe walls that pop up in the middle of the track that you have to avoid. the track shape is displayed in a small map at the bottom of the screen along with each car's location.

the main power-ups are 'Super Sticky Tires' to give you a tighter turning radius, and also 'Turbo Acceleration' and 'Higher Top Speed' which are self-explanatory. you can upgrade each of these 4 times by collecting them while racing. each track also has one letter on it that you can collect to spell out 'NINTENDO' and get a new car to drive. I would recommend NOT collecting them, since the AI is programmed to play much harder every time you get a new car. there are even power-ups that let you shoot bullets ahead of you or else drop bombs behind you and there's plenty of ammo to pick up too. the most powerful item is the roll-cage which makes you unable to crash and allows you to cause other cars to spin out by running into them.

The Bad
sometimes the yellow car gets mad, makes a funny noise, and then speeds up to several times the maximum possible speed. the only way to stop him is to shoot him right away before he starts to lap everyone. it also would have been nice if you could get extra lives, since to this day I've never beaten it.

The Bottom Line
a fun racing game that has more replay value than off-road.