Road Blasters

Take to the road in the most dangerous race known. Tengen's home version has all the features of the arcade original. The roads are dangerous, with mine fields buried in the roads, turrets shooting at you, and other cars out to get you. The only thing that can save you is the special weapons and the much needed fuel globes. The arcade classic is now brought home for all Genesis players to enjoy!

The scene is futuristic land where drivers have more to worry about than speeding tickets. You can't get gasoline at the corner station anymore -- you've got to fight your way to a fill up. Prepare to strap yourself into your armored roadster and race through a Rally with 50 different levels. Mindscape's new home version of the arcade smash hit, Road Blasters, will really test your nerves.

It Starts With a Screech

Your car lurches into first gear with a gut-wrenching wheely and suddenly you're up to 200 miles per hour. At speeds like this even the simple task of keeping your car on the road is difficult. But then, to make matters worse, you look in front of you and see enemy cars screaming towards you. This is no ordinary freeway! Just dodging the bad guys isn't going to be enough It's time to get rough! You place your fingers on the trigger of your cannon and let fly with a couple of rounds, opening up a fiery hole in the traffic.

A Fight For the Fuel

As you tear towards the finish line, you'll need to find gas and it's not as easy as you think. The green orbs placed sparingly along your route provide you with fuel. However, they're not always in the most convenient locations. Sometimes you'll see them on the side of the road. Don't dally too long in getting them. Your speed is precious and you can't possibly keep up 200 MPH in the off-road terrain of Bubble City.

Pick them up to power yourself to the finish. These red orbs usually mean the difference between being stranded on an isolated roadway infested with enemy vehicles or basking in glory at victory square. Don't fret if you can't get to all of the globes. In Bubble City, destruction often provides generous rewards. Your enemies frequently carry red fuel orbs which will survive the force of your cannon.

You Are Not Alone

You have friends in high places. Just when you think your life is over your allies fly over and drop a modification onto your car. Just maneuver your car under the ally plane and you're in business. At first, you'll get a U.Z. Cannon-great defense against large motorcycle gangs. One quick squeeze and those riders go flying. But that's not all. Next, you'll get a special fuel enhancer, the Nitro Inject that enables you to cruise to the finish at over 300 mph!

As you travel inland you'll need more advanced weaponry. Your friends come through in excellent fashion. The next weapon they give you is a Cruise Missile-capable of destroying everything in sight with a single explosion. The only things that survive are your car and your opponents' fuel orbs. And, finally, you find yourself in a situation where you think you'll need a miracle to survive, your friends drop some new technology on your vehicle-an Electro Shield that protects your car from everything! Use it correctly, and you can cruise into victory square untouched!

They're Not All Friendly

During your race, you'll encounter a huge variety of obstacles that make the finish line seem like an impossible dream. A quick blast from the laser cannon will finish off the standard orange racers called Stingers. But the blue sedans, or Command Cars, aren't so easily destroyed.

Annihilating the pesky motorcycles pin point accuracy. Try using the U.Z. Cannon. Enemy Gun Turrets will try to blast you as you fly by. Dodge their fire or destroy them. Land mines sometimes block your path. Skillful navigation around these is your only hope for survival. Later in the course the deadly Rat Jeeps hop onto the track behind you. Kill them quickly with a timely cannon blast. This takes quick reflexes as they appear almost instantly. This army of enemies will make your trip to victory square difficult. But the joy of leaving them behind you in smoking ruins is truly great.

Once the smoke clears, you can look back with pride at the gauntlet you've run. It's a difficult task, which requires expert precision, but hey, nobody said it was going to be easy.

I hate the idiotic stories that always get plugged into the manuals for these things--they try to be amusing, but fail miserably. This one's no different. If you buy the game, do yourself a big favor and skip the introduction. Go straight to the "Getting Started" section of the manual.

The manual's "story" notwithstanding, Road Blasters is a wonderfully faithful adaptation of the Atari coin-op hit of the same name.

This is a race-or-die sort of contest, where you not only have to try to complete each leg of the race, but gather fuel (in the form of globes zooming down the road on their own) along the way, at the same time dodging and/or destroying other vehicles. The view is sort of Pole Position-ish, from just above and behind your trusty car. The fuel this thing uses gets eaten up even sitting still, so don't spare the gas pedal! Driving 55 won't get you better economy; in fact, it'll result in your losing the game.

As you zip down the road, you'll have to duck mines on the pavement, rocks on the curbs and (nearly) invulnerable limousines, all the while shooting more combustible vehicles for points (and sometimes fuel). To aid you in your driving, a jet occasionally flies over and drops a special weapon, which, if you can catch it (just by moving under it), can help you. Special weapons include a U.Z. Cannon for blasting cars and gun turrets; an Electro Shield that allows you to plow through everything like it wasn't there; a Cruise Missile that "nukes" all opponents off the highway for miles ahead; and a Nitro Injector, which sends your car off at warp speed--or at least it seems that fast.

The graphics are outstanding, a near dead-ringer for the arcade version. The only problem is that the screen, being so small and with limited resolution, makes it harder to see things like mines in the road before it's too late. If you want to last more than five seconds when the mine , warning sounds, slow down and drive carefully!

The sound is better than average, but not quite up to the Lynx's best. Although it features digitized voices, they aren't as clear as on the Klax cart for the Lynx, and the game's music isn't even the same as on the arcade machine.

The only real flaw in this game isn't the fault of the game itself, but involves the controller. The arcade version of Road Blasters features a steering wheel, permitting fine control of your car. The joypad, by comparison, allows you to either go straight or turn. Because there is no possibility of an in-between position with such a controller, it's exceedingly difficult to keep your car in one lane or even to line up on a target. Press the pad and the car angles in too sharply. Don't press it while turning a corner, and you risk some unexpected lane-changing and a likely crash. A little practice makes this problem less bothersome, but it certainly serves to illustrate the limitations of this common home video-game controller.

Have you got the lightning-fast reflexes and split-second decision making abilities to master the ultimate racing car? You'll find out in Roadblasters, an arcade stalwart now new for the Lynx.

This road race cum shoot-em-up features 50 treacherous, winding race courses where you hit speeds up to 230 miles per hour! To make things even more difficult, you also have to keep a sharp look out for enemy vehicles, roadside cannons, land mines, and other obstacles.

Road Warriors

The object of the game is to survive a futuristic race rally without crashing into obstacles, running out of fuel, or being obliterated by other vehicles.

To help you along you get a helpful, detailed onboard computer console that displays fuel level, speed, and score, and alerts you to the presence of land mines. It even calls out useful advice at different points of the race.

If you like to count points, annihilate the competition with your hood-mounted laser. Shoot as accurately as possible, since the hit and miss ratio determinesyour score.

There are a pack of vehicles (or targets, depending on your perspective) vying for their share of the road. Green cars, orange cars, and motorcycles are slowpokes, so they're easy to pick off. Brown jeeps are slower still, but they swerve into your lane without warning. Blue cars are the meanest machines: They run the fastest, seem indestructible, and always gang up on you in packs.

Aerial Assistance

Fortunately, you have friends from above. An alien spaceship randomly drops special weapons onto your racer. The U.Z. Cannon has rapid fire. The Electro Shield provides a few moments of precious indestructibility. The Nitro Injector turbo-boosts your already impressive speed (but makes your car practically uncontrollable). The Cruise Missile destroys everything on the road ahead for several miles! Each special weapon has limited usage, but the control panel keeps count for you.

Fill'er Up!

Managing your short-lived radioactive fuel modules is tricky, but critical. In advanced levels, your starting fuel supply barely gets you halfway through the course. To re-fuel, pick up fuel modules that randomly appear on the road, cross a course's midpoint, or successfully complete a level. Your fuel status carries over to each new race, so it's crucial to load up on fuel every opportunity you get!

Roadblasters is an easy game to pick up, but it's extremely difficult to master all fifty levels. Fortunately, at the end of certain courses, you can warp ahead to more advanced levels. Gameplay is very efficient; the directional pad controls speed and steering, and either control button fires weapons. The bright, colorful graphics are identical to its arcade predecessor. Roadblasters is definitely worth taking for a spin around the block!

Ready for a fast-paced drive-and-shoot? Maneuver your sports car through 50 rounds, blowing away any enemy cars that get in your way. Use weapons such as the photon, electro-shield, and the nitro-injector to advance to the next round. Be sure to pick up fuel as you go or you'll sputter to a halt.

One of the first Atari Games/Tengen arcade titles to be transferred over to the Lynx. This game, although still in development, promises to be everything that the coin-op was, from exploding cars to detailed skylines to special warp bonuses. The graphics are nearly identical to the arcade original, with twisting and turning roads filled with cars, cycles and power-up planes that award an even more potent arsenal. Expect a carbon-copy of the coin-op in almost everyway!

In the not-so-far off future auto racing will take on a whole new dimension. Based on the Atari coin-op, RoadBlasters is a fast and furious driving shoot-em-up with all the sights and sounds of the arcade. Catch the special weapons dropped from the weapons craft overhead. Equip yourself with cannons, Nitro and Cruise missiles to blast through all 50 levels!

So, you thought the 1990s were going to be a "kinder, gentler" decade, eh? Not with games like Atari Corp.'s RoadBlasters and Paperboy!

Take RoadBlasters, for instance. It's a car-racing game in which you go speeding down a busy highway while avoiding such everyday road hazards as merging traffic, oil slicks, explosive mines, curbside cannons, and road-hogging cars and motorcycles that blow up on contact. You can shoot back with such weapons as lasers, rapid-fire cannons, and cruise missiles.

In other words, RoadBlasters is a fairly accurate simulation of rush hour on a Los Angeles freeway.

Then there's Paperboy. In this game, you're supposedly a bicycling teenager who's delivering the daily newspaper to homes in a typical suburban neighborhood. Hazards include loony lawn-mowers, belligerent dogs, inconsiderate kids on skateboards, hostile fire hydrants, and even funeral hearses driven by reckless maniacs.

But that's OK, because you're really a teenage terrorist in disguise. If someone on your paper route won't subscribe, you deliver a newspaper to them anyway - right through their picture window. And while you're at it, you'll knock over their garbage cans and vandalize their lawn ornaments. That'll teach 'em what happens when they flee the city for the suburbs!

Both RoadBlasters and Paperboy, of course, are based on arcade hits that have been widely translated for other videogame systems and home computers. The Lynx version of RoadBlasters is particularly noteworthy for its fast, smooth animation and amazing illusion of speed.

Another outstanding feature is the digitized speech. From time to time, a voice offers helpful hints and advice, such as "Watch for cross traffic" or "Fuel level critical".

Although RoadBlasters encourages you to blast away at the opposing traffic, it discourages careless shooting. At the end of each round, your points are multiplied by a factor that's determined by your shooting accuracy. The higher your hit ratio, the greater your score.

If you'd prefer a somewhat slower-paced game, check out Paperboy. It's a close translation of the arcade game, with the same diagonal scrolling, zany hazards, and bonus rounds. Your main goal is to deliver copies of The Daily Sun ("The World's Most Throwable Newspaper") to all of your subscribers on the block. Before departing on your route, you can choose from three difficulty levels: Easy Street, Middle Road, or Hard Way.

Subscribers' houses are easy to spot, because they have delivery boxes clearly labeled Sun. For each paper you successfully toss into a box, you get 250 points. If a house doesn't have a delivery box out front, it's an open target. Flinging your papers like rocks, you can shatter windows, spill garbage cans, and sometimes even flatten the stingy residents themselves. The game continues through each day of the week until you eventually lose all your lives by crashing your bicycle into various obstacles.

The spectacular Atari games coin-op is being translated for the Genesis. Perfect in every detail!

The futuristic racing/shooting coin-op is being converted to the Genesis by Tengen. Smooth scaling and good control make this cart one of the best racing games around.

It's an impossible mission but you must get across the country to deliver an urgent message to the president. All forms of communication have broken down as the enemy has invaded, and taken over most of the cities of the nation. The roads are the only mode of transportation left and even they are constantly being patrolled by the invaders. Some stretches of highways have been boobytrapped with mines, while others have metal detecting laser cannons ready to destroy anything trying to get by.

A special car has been created just for this mission and it has been equipped with the best protective zirconium armor and fitted with the most powerful weapons known to civilization. The front mounted 50mm cannons will destroy nearly anything in their path and our special forces, in special spy aircraft, have promised to drop even more powerful, but untested, weapons to you as you speed across the country. Fuel is the major problem though, as your car gets very thirsty at high speeds, but our intelligence sources have found spare fuel cells on many roads and inside some of the enemy patrol cars.

The probability of success is low, but with your talents and superior fire-power you have a chance! Not only must you get past hundreds of enemy vehicles spread out through 50 torturous sections of roadway, but you must also contend not only with the diabolical terrorist, but civilian cars as well!

The game play is surprisingly close to the coin-op masterpiece, incorporating all of the popular features found in the quarter-muncher. You must maintain control of your attack vehicle while going up against the enemy and attempting to reclaim new power cells. Each course has its own set of challenges designed to make it difficult just to stiay on the track, including twisting hairpin curves, minefields, cannons and more!

At the beginning of play, and at several pivotal points in the game you are given the option to select a higher level of play for bonus points. This feature enables novice gamers to work their way up through the levels, while the pros can skip the boring round and dive head-first into greater challenges.

The whole game is based around the fuel gauge, with enemy hits and wipeouts deducting the precious energy from your primary tanks or reserve tanks. The primary tank is replenished whenever a particular race is completed or when a green fuel cell is captured and the reserve tank is increased by finishing the race with too much energy in the primary tank as well as whenever a red energy capsule is retrieved.

Additional power-up weapons can also be collected by skillfully grabbing the enhancements that are dropped from overhead. These weapons range from the Nitro Boost, which propels your attack car at incredible speeds in a short burst of acceleration, to the Uzi cannon which enables you to fire a steady stream of bullets at the enemy.

Road Blasters is filled with many other exciting techniques that include scoring incentives that enable you to increase the value of the enemy autos you strike down by not missing a shot! The graphics are well done, the scaling top notch and the sound effects and voice complimentary to the package. For anyone looking for a hand-held recreation of this exciting game, the Lynx may have what you're looking for!

The great Atari coin-op is coming to the Lynx practically unscathed. Hop in your super car and blow down the highway taking out the enemy in the cars and bikes that you encounter. Your fuel is limited so get extra gas from special fuel cells that you run across and grab the special weapons which the helicopter drops down to you. Find the warps and skip levels on your way across the country!

Based on the popular arcade driving/shooting combo, you take control of a fuel-injected assualt vehicle out to infiltrate enemy territory in an armored car that packs plenty of firepower. With a cannon mounted on your hood, you must destroy the opposing cars, avoid mines, and curb-side artillery while picking up fuel globes and recovering the special weapons dropped from friendly jet aircraft. Can you run the gauntlet of enemy landscapes?