Who among fans of arcade racing is not familiar with the subgenre of combat racing?? Well, where racers actively blow up, set fire and do other nasty things to their rivals’ cars. True, today battles can be found mainly in various karting crossovers like the Mario Kart series, Sonic & All-Star Racing, where the heroes (and villains) of various games sort things out. But among the extermination races there are very interesting examples, and even entire series that are undeservedly forgotten today.

When EA was a cake

This story began back in 1987, when Electronic Arts released Racing Destruction Set – one of the first examples of the arcade racing genre. However, there was something about this Commodore64 "Racing Destruction Pack" that made the game something more.

The game had a level editor that allowed you not to be limited to a dozen (or how many more were usually made in games then) tracks. Tired of wandering around familiar twists and hills? Please – in five minutes you can assemble (including using the templates available in the program) any racing track – flat, as in Formula 1, or with many obstacles and jumps, as in survival races, or even covered in places with a crust of ice. Why is there ice?! In the settings you could even change the gravity, as if the race was taking place on the Moon or some alien planet.

Actually this is an editor from RPM Racing. I couldn’t find the screenshot I needed on the Internet, and I can’t launch the game on the emulator.
Why then was the game called Destruction Set and not Construction Set?? The thing is that, in addition to regular racing, the authors added Destruction Mode to the game – a mode where you could not only overtake your opponents, but also prevent them from getting ahead by dropping mines from the car and pouring oil on the road.

In general, given all the features, it was not surprising how popular the game was. And even more so, it was not surprising that EA wanted to make remakes and ports of the game to other platforms in order to reach a larger audience. And now, three years after the release of the original, a small and unknown company, Silicon&Synapse, was tasked with making a version of the game for the Super Nintendo.

Blizzard gets down to business

The developers did their best – the remake, released in 1991, was worthy of its predecessor. True, the color palette had to be cut down in order to increase the resolution (yes, that was the very limitation of the power of consoles even then). But overall it was a good old Racing Destruction Set. True, the name of the game was changed – now it has become Radical Psycho Machine Racing or RPM Racing for short.

RCS and RPM Racing – feel the difference!
But the future blizzards didn’t stop there. It was decided to make a sequel. Maybe not in such high resolution, but in better color. Maybe without a level editor, but with leveling up, colorful characters and… music. Several tracks from American rock legends were licensed for the game. This is how RPM Racing 2 turned into Rock’n’Roll Racing.

However, driving music tracks like “Born to be wild” were not the only thing added to the new races. Now the game even had something like a plot. About a simple guy from planet Earth (or not from Earth and not even necessarily a guy – there were 6 playable characters plus two secret ones), participating in a racing championship on a cosmic scale.

Snake Sanders is an earthling hero whose appearance was based on the vocalist of the band Witesnake. Well, Olaf (the secret character) is known to everyone who played Lost Vikings.

Remember that in the first https://royale500casino.uk part it was possible to change gravity and other parameters? So why not justify this by being on different planets with different conditions and climates??! That’s what Silicon&Synapse thought. Moreover, in each world the racer had its own subtleties, its own tracks and even a separate colorful personality as a rival.

Of course, with such surroundings there was no need to deal with realism and verisimilitude. So, regular jeeps were joined by jet-powered racing cars, hovercars and even light tanks. Yes, with guns. However, now all the cars were hung with weapons, accelerators, and some even threw mines onto the road instead of the usual spikes and oil.

Let the carnage begin!

If we talk purely about the fan, then his game brings the sea. Although there are only four cars in the race, this is enough to cause real chaos on the track. Someone rams and presses someone, someone crashes, someone explodes.

It looks something like this… But in fact, there is a little secret here – the game speeds up the lagging racers a little so that the chances of such a heap increase.

Already at the very beginning of the race, spikes are scattered on the track, turning cars around, and in some places even mines. So, even without the use of weapons, your opponents can damage the car by simply pushing them in the right direction. Keep in mind that any collision also harms you.

Fortunately, there are also several bonuses scattered around the track that completely restore the car’s protection. On the other hand, you can try to collect them already on the first lap in order to prevent your opponents from healing (after you have thoroughly beaten them).

In general, there are a lot of subtleties for those who would like to devote enough time to the game. In addition to the “first aid kits”, there are also cash bonuses on the track that allow you to get one buck for improvements in addition to the prize for the podium. Or a new, faster and more powerful car.

Money is also given to players for overtaking an opponent in a circle and destroying him (as in Dota, the only thing that mattered was who made the last shot).

“Pumping up” is generally standard – a more powerful engine, improved suspension and clutch, increased ammunition capacity. The latter, by the way, has one more subtlety – although the number of charges is limited, at each passage of the starting line the ammunition is replenished. So the decision when to shoot (at the beginning of the circle or wait in case of a more convenient moment) must also be made wisely.

Generally speaking, there is no loss as such in the game. If you don’t earn victory points to advance to a higher league or travel to another planet, you simply end the old season and start a new one. At the same time, all purchased equipment and earned money remain, which means you simply upgrade until the best car and body kit compensate for insufficient skills (or luck smiles on you). At any time you can view the password for the current state – this is essentially the same as saving/loading a game in case you are not playing on an emulator.

But, of course, when it comes to multiplayer, that’s a completely different conversation. It’s true that it’s only for two players, but there is also a co-op mode (the same races according to seasons, only two players), and a “who-who-who” competition, with the choice of planet and other settings. True, I still wouldn’t recommend getting too carried away with the competitive side – too much depends on a random mine or bullet. But letting off steam with a friend is just the thing.

In addition to the randomness, a collision system that doesn’t quite match the graphics adds trouble. Especially when jumping, figure out whether you will hit a mine or not.

And then the nitro ended.

Alas, after the release of Rock’n’Roll Racing, the glory of the series did not last long. Blizzard (Silicon&Synapse changed its name just during the release of the game, which is why the new company name appears in the version for Sega Megadrive) focused its efforts on creating Dune 2 clone a new strategy about the war between orcs and humans. And allocated resources for the continuation of old projects on a residual basis.

The sequel to Rock’n’Roll Racing, Red Asphalt wasn’t that bad. He just didn’t care for the receiver. In principle, there were new characters drawn like comics, an expanded leveling system, and screensavers before each race… But that wasn’t the main thing in the original! And the problems of the original were not solved in the sequel. All the same four cars on the track and the absence of an editor (and the game was already for the first PlayStation) – this is the first thing that an RnRR fan saw when launching the game. What was the point of purchasing a new game if the old one was inferior only in graphics?? What if the game didn’t go to a fan?? Either because of the changed perspective, or because of a different ratio of the power of weapons and armor, but the drive in racing has also greatly decreased.

It has become even more difficult to catch up with opponents and shoot them. But the benefit from destroying a car is not so great – after a few seconds it will be restored and the opponent will come after you.
Things didn’t work out for the series with its “spiritual successors” either. Released in December 2013, Motor Rock became the first game to continue the tradition and adopt… Unfortunately, it adopted too much from the original. So much so that Blizzard sued the authors of the remake. And literally a week later the game was removed from Steam.

Actually, the authors didn’t even hide where the ears grow from. Initially, the game was generally called Rock’n’Roll Racing 3D.
Judging by the reviews Motor Rock wasn’t that bad. And there are even certain steps forward (there are already six cars on the track, for example). But it still has too few differences from the original. And besides, the pleasure of racing is hampered by glitches with multiplayer synchronization and other shortcomings. Judging by the reviews again. I can’t see for myself – the game asks for money for a steam key, despite its absence from steam. I don’t know, maybe by paying I’ll get a non-Steam version, but I don’t want to risk it. Somehow all this smacks of defamation. Greed, hmm..

There are also games BlazeRush and SpeedKills. Maybe I’ll even review them, if they don’t drive me completely into the red.

In general, today the original Rock’n’Roll Racing is more of a museum piece than a game. If, of course, you decide to download it (by the way, on the Battle website.net there is a completely legal demo with three tracks), you will get a charge of positive emotions by racing alone or with a friend. But nothing more.

Is there any hope that someone will try to revive the series again?? Don’t know. It’s unlikely to be Blizzard – they’re not particularly interested in their roots. Third Party Developers? After all, there are successful examples – “Revival” of Deathtrack (and, like Motor Rock from our compatriots) and Road Redemption (yes, the successor to Road Rash was defended in Early Access for more than one year, but it was worth it). But again, Metelitsa has already refused the offer to make Motor Rock an official remake.

The problem is also that RnR Racing relied on a combination of crazy racing, visual style and music. It made the game a hit, but today musical tastes are different, and the requirements for gameplay have changed. However, if someone decides to make a racing game in a rocker style, where on the tracks of distant planets racers fry competitors with a plasma gun, and in addition to the game there will also be a track editor – I will wait for the release of this project. Although it is unlikely that the word Rock will appear in its name. Big companies today demand too much for connections to their series.