Nitro Racers

Anyone who lurked around amusement arcades during the 80s is bound to have come across Super Sprint. A top-down racing game, it came replete with four steering wheels and was pretty much a primitive precursor to today's network gaming. The one-player stand-up version can still be found in chip shops at the occasional seaside town that someone forgot to close down, but with Nitro Racers those heady days can be relived in the safety of your own abode. Although strictly speaking it isn't the same game, it can safely be scribed as a tribute, and it ably recaptures the feel of the arcade version -albeit without the hindrance of glue-sniffers in puffer jackets scrounging cigarettes.

The top-down perspective remains intact and there's also a pseudo Micro Machines-style scrolling view and a split-screen affair. The game is playable via a simple arcade option which involves a championship played out over 15 different courses, with a variety of terrains including asphalt, mud, ice and sand. The tracks are of varying degrees of complexity, although the charmingly named Ring Piece consists of a simple circle. A further 15 courses come into play under the management option, whereby cars are upgraded between races by purchasing new tyres, better engines and so forth. More efficient pit crews can also be hired, making those all-important pit stops slightly quicker.

The inevitable accompanying dance music is as generic as it comes, although the manual sees fit to inform us of the names of the available tracks which include such aural delights as Synthetic Nightmare and Weirdness Of Sanity. Cheers. Ultimately, as a one-player game Nitro Racers is fairly limited, its real value being in network play. What do you mean you haven't got eight PCs? Best get down the arcade then.