Stunt Track Racer

1001 Video Games

Stunt Car Racer appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cancelled sequel

In 2003 Geoff Crammond started the work on a sequel called Stunt Car Racer Pro, but after a long time without any news about the project, it was officially canned in February 2005.

Multiplayer

Stunt Car Racer could be played with two players using a serial connection between two machines. This also worked with different systems, so you could also connect an Amiga with an Atari ST, which was quite unusual at this time.

Programming

Even with it's (simple) 3D graphics and physics model, Stunt Track Racer runs at a decent clip on a 4.77MHz machine with CGA, and full speed on any machine 8MHz or faster. Extremely well-optimized programming!

While the CGA version of the game didn't do any speed checking and runs too fast on modern hardware, the EGA version was throttled by the EGA page-flipping, and runs perfectly on modern hardware.

Amstrad CPC versions

There were two versions of the game for Amstrad CPC: for CPC 464 and CPC 6128. The latter came complete with an extra multiplayer mode and a "hall of fame" gallery. These two features did not exist in CPC 464 version.

Stunt Car Racer TNT

"Stunt Car Racer TNT" (The New Tracks) is an unofficial enhancement of the original game released for Amiga. It was made by hackers and offered eight new tracks. Colour palette during the race was changed as well as there were some slight modifications of the title screen.

References

Although it was almost a decade old at the time, Stunt Track Racer was remembered and mentioned as a comparison in CDMAG's review of Whiplash.

Awards

• ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)
  • February 1991 (issue #41) - Included in the list Greatest Games of all Time, section Racing Games (editorial staff choice)
• Amiga Power
  • May 1991 (Issue #00) - #10 in the "All Time Top 100 Amiga Games"
• Commodore Format
  • June 1991 (Issue 9) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
  • July 1993 (Issue 34) - Modern Classics: Driving Games
  • March 1994 (Issue 42) Heaven – The Path to Righteousness: 20 Essential Games
  • November 1994 (Issue 50) – #48 The All-Time Top 50 C64 Games
  • October 1995 (Issue 61) – The Top Ten C64 Games of all Time
• Zzap!
  • January 1990 (Issue 57) – 'The Best Games of the 80's Decade' (Phil King)

Information also contributed by GP4Flo, mailmanppa