Road Fighter

Road Fighter
European arcade flyer of Road Fighter.
Developer(s)	Konami
Publisher(s)	Konami Japan Palcom Software Europe
Platform(s)	Arcade, MSX, NES
Release	Arcade JP: December 1984 Mobile Phones JP: 2005

Road Fighter (ロードファイター, Rōdo Faitā^?) is a racing arcade game developed by Konami and released in December 1984. It also was the first racing game from Konami. The goal is to reach the finish line within the stages without running out of time, hitting other cars or running out of fuel (fuel is refilled by hitting a special type of car). The game also spawned two sequels in its time, Midnight Run: Road Fighter 2 in 1995 and Winding Heat in 1996, respectively. A Japan-only rebooted sequel was also released in 2010, 14 years after Winding Heat.

The game was later released for the MSX home computer system (1985), and Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan 1985 and Europe 1991, and followed the same format as the original. The game was included on Konami Arcade Classics in 1999 and on Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits for the Nintendo DS. The arcade game was released for i-mode phones in Japan in 2005.

Road Fighter was made available on Microsoft's Game Room service for its Xbox 360 console and for Windows-based PCs on March 24, 2010.

The first and second levels contain 4 courses, ranging from grassy plains to an over water bridge to a seashore, mountains and finally a forest area. In the arcade version, 6 stages were contained. Pressing the 'B' button raises the player's speed to around 196 km/h while pressing the 'A' button skyrockets the speed to 400. The player has a limited amount of fuel and can earn more by touching special multi-colored cars. If the player crashes into any other car or slips on occasionally appearing patches of oil, the car will begin to spin out and if not corrected may crash into the side barriers, causing a loss of 5-6 fuel units. The NES and Famicom version have a total of 6 types of cars, 1 yellow and red, three blue and one truck. Yellow cars will travel along a straight line and occur in large numbers. Red cars are a little less likely to appear, but they will change the lane they are travelling in once to get in the way of the player. Blue cars vary in the way they change their lane. Trucks go on a straight way, but colliding with them will blow up the player's car. Konami Man will make a cameo appearance, flying by the side of the road if the player progresses to a certain point in the level without crashing (not included on course 2 in NES and Famicom versions).