Road Fighter

Game review

A very old game with a top-down view and a smaller combat element to make it interesting. As usual in racing games, your task is to get to the finish line - before your time runs out (but of course, the sooner the better), before you run out of gas and before you break the car to pieces. The road is full of other cars (the most dangerous of which are the purple ones that drive in the opposite lane), trucks and obstacles that you may encounter while driving. The fuel in the game is limited and you need the help of special fuel vehicles to refill it. There are also special funny bonuses that you can get and they are good because they add points to you. In short, a very good and dynamic old game that is sure to please the hearts of many old players. 

The first two levels contain four courses, ranging from grassy plains to an over-water bridge to a seashore, mountains and finally a forest area. In the arcade version, six stages were contained. The player controls a red Chevrolet Corvette and pressing the B accelerates the car to around 224 km/h while the A button increases it to 400. The player has a limited amount of fuel points (equal to about 100 seconds) and can earn more by touching special multi-colored cars. If the player collides into any other car or slips on occasionally appearing patches of oil, the car will spin out and if not corrected, may crash into the side barriers, causing a loss of five to six fuel points. The NES and Famicom versions have a total of six types of opponents, one yellow and red, three blue and one truck. Yellow cars travel along a straight line and occur in large numbers. Red cars are 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 are the game's main "enemies"; they vary in the way they change their lane and attempts to hit the player. Trucks go on a straight way, but colliding with them instantly destroys 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 two in NES and Famicom versions).