Rad Racer
| Rad Racer | |
|---|---|
North American box art
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| Developer(s) | Square |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Designer(s) | Hironobu Sakaguchi |
| Programmer(s) | Nasir Gebelli |
| Composer(s) | Nobuo Uematsu |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo Entertainment System, PlayChoice-10 |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Arcade style racing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Review score | |
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| Publication | Score |
| AllGame |    |
Rad Racer, originally released in Japan as Highway Star (ハイウェイスター Haiuei Sutā?), is a racing game developed and published by Square for the Family Computer in 1987. In this game, players drive a Ferrari 328 or an F1 racing machine through a race course.
The game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America and Europe months after its debut on Family Computer. The game was part of an attempt by Square to make 3-D games, and was followed by several other games using the same technology.
The game sold over half a million copies, and is considered one of the best racing games on the NES, but was also criticized as being derivative of other racing games from the period.
Players can choose between two types of car to race; either a 328 Twin Turbo or an F1 machine.Rad Racer players can activate a 3D mode during play by pressing the "Select" button and wearing 3D glasses. Players could also use the Power Glove to control their vehicle.
The idea of Rad Racer is to rally through a course and its checkpoints before the timer expires. The player's car crashes if it collides with a road sign or tree at any speed. Cars hit from behind slow down and cars hit from the side are jettisoned in that direction. Crashes take time and make it more difficult for the player to reach the check point. There are eight different levels of increasing skill. Even if time runs out, the vehicle can continue to coast for a while; if the vehicle reaches a checkpoint before running out of momentum, the game continues. If time runs out before the goal is reached, the game is over. The game came packaged with 3D glasses which could be worn to give the player the illusion of three dimensions (Square had previously incorporated the usage of 3D glasses in 3-D WorldRunner). At the car selection screen, the player can pick one of two cars: a Ferrari 328 or an F1 racing machine, similar in appearance to the 1987 Camel-sponsored Honda/Lotus 99T Formula One car. Although officially there is supposedly no performance gain by choosing the F1 racing machine over the Ferrari 328, this is debated by race fans. Both cars have a maximum speed of 255 km/h (255 is the highest integer representable within 8 bits). In-game, "turbo" can be activated by pressing the up button to boost the car's speed (but only after the car gets to 100 km/h), and disengaged at any time by releasing the button. Pushing down on the joypad can also allow the player to select between three types of background music or none at all.
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Wikipedia