Your eyes are not deceiving you.
Over the weekend, I was at a local retro gaming store and decided to purchase a SEGA Dreamcast along with a few games to start. One of those games happens to be a racing game based on one of my favorite Hanna-Barbera cartoons ever made... Wacky Races.
Developed by Infogrames Sheffield House (originally known as Gremlin Interactive, then Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited) and published Infrogrames in 1999, this is Wacky Races for the SEGA Dreamcast (released for North America and Europe) and the PS2 (PlayStation 2 version was released exclusively for Europe in 2001 under the name "Wacky Races: Starring Dastardly and Muttley").
The game includes two modes: Arcade and Adventure. Arcade mode features normal racing across various tracks. In Adventure mode, the player races on tracks to win gold stars or Wacky Trial clocks to unlock more tracks, abilities, and challenges. Wacky Trial clocks are rewarded when a race is won in a certain amount of time. These are needed to unlock boss challenges as well. Gold stars are needed to unlock various things, such as tracks and areas. They are gained by winning various events. Once 10 gold stars have been rewarded, the Boss Area is unlocked, in which the player must compete against one of three "elite" cars: Professor Pat Pending's Convert-a-Car, the Red Max's Crimson Haybailer, and the Mean Machine. Dastardly and Muttley are the main bosses of the game, with many of their power-ups geared towards attack.
Gadgets include an explosive mine that can be placed along the road, turbo speed, a temporary flying ability, and temporary invincibility. Pink discs known as "Tokens" float along the track. When picked up they fuel gadgets and give the player the option to perform one. Once they are used, they are shot out the back and left for other drivers to pick up.
All the vehicles and drivers from the cartoon are featured in the game, but there is only an eight-car grid, preventing them all from racing at once. The vehicles are put into five groups based on their acceleration, speed, and handling. The game features four themed levels, including a desert with Wild West towns and coal mines, snow-covered mountain towns, a Wacky Races version of Mount Rushmore, and a large city with rooftop race tracks (not featured in the Dreamcast version).
This is the first video of Random Races in the awesome SEGA Dreamcast version of the way out Wacky Races, enjoy!
3 окт 2024
