Top Gear Longplay (SNES) [60 FPS]

Описание: Developed by Gremlin Graphics and published by Kemco in 1992

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For today's video, I'll be checking out Top Gear, a third-person racing title developed by 80's and 90's Brit-soft legends, Gremlin Graphics. The studio had published the brilliant Lotus Turbo Challenge series (developed by Magnetic Fields) on the Amiga computer and other consoles, and Top Gear bears quite a few similarities to those games.

This title features a permanent split-screen mode for up to two players to race against each other in a series of circuit races across multiple continents in a bid to become the Top Gear champion. In the absence of a second player, the bottom car is controlled by the CPU and puts up a pretty stiff challenge, especially on the harder difficulty settings.

With up to 19 other cars on the grid, the objective is to race through the pack and be the first over the finish line. The better your position, the more points you earn at the end of the race and the higher your chances of winning the championship.

Just as in real racing, your car has limited amount of fuel on board and this will get used up quickly as you drive. Races set over 4 or more laps will often feature a pit lane somewhere on the track, allowing you to top up, but costing you precious time in the process. Run of of fuel, however, and it's a long (not to mention embarrassing) walk back to the garage.

Although the game boasts a promising feature set, as well as coming from a respectable development studio, things start to look less positive once you've spent some time racing. Under the hood of any game are a myriad of complex algorithms and mechanics that govern how events unfold. The best games are those that otherwise disguise these systems, or tune them to such a degree that the player either neglects to notice them. Unfortunately, Top Gear straddles the other end of the spectrum where the underlying mechanics and restrictions are rather too apparent, detracting from the overall racing experience.

The AI player car is an interesting case in point. It can hold the road infinitely better than my car could, despite the fact I chose a vehicle with a higher grip rating. Whereas I had to brake on sharp bends to prevent myself from sliding off the track, the AI has no such issues - it can go round any bend at full tilt without breaking a sweat.

Secondly, the AI car will not exceed speeds of 150 mph, even when going down hill. This is in sharp contrast to the player's vehicle, which could reach up to 180/190 mph, even without use of nitro. This means that you'll really struggle to win races on tracks with sharp corners and no down-hill sections.

The other glaringly obvious problem is the fact that none of the AI cars (save the second player) ever have to make a pit-stop to refuel! Getting overtaken is pretty much inevitable whilst refuelling, so the only hope you have of regaining first place is to build up a good enough lead. You might be able regain lost ground if the track has some down-hill sections, otherwise you're looking at second place (or worse).

And the niggles don't stop there. Other annoyances include the fact that the pits don't rejoin the actual race course, jettisoning you on to the grass verge/into track-side furniture as you exit, costing you precious seconds in the process.

I couldn't help but notice that several tracks feature bends that are so sharp and go on for so long that you'd have gone round in a complete circle if it were real; I'm pretty sure the Leaning Tower of Pisa went past 3 or 4 times on some of the Italian tracks!

Then there's the game's performance, which errs on the the side of sluggish whenever both players are racing simultaneously. The frame-rate improves quite noticeably whenever one of the player's cars is in the pits (or has finished the race), so it's a shame that there was no option to disable the second player and enjoy a smoother experience.

I suppose I've painted a pretty bleak picture of Top Gear here, but it's not actually that bad a racing game. There are plenty of tracks to race around and there's some funky music from Barry Leitch (not a patch on Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 though). If you're in the market for a racing game then you could certainly do worse than this - just don't expect it to knock your socks off.
#retrogaming