Top Gear – Hitting It Through The Tarmac
That’s it. The race of your life. head to head nose to nose Flag to flag for the world championship. And only his best friend, or his worst enemy, stands in their way as they chase each other across 32 fiendishly tricky race tracks spread from Paris to Rio.
Then there was the SNES trilogy known as “Top Gear” (or “Top Racer” as it was known in Japan). Sequels after the first TG became more advanced in terms of options for races, cars, skins, and required “money” to purchase parts and accessories earned from first places in a race. The original Top Gear is valued for the fact that it was simplistic in nature: pick your name, pick your transmission (automatic or manual), and pick your controller skin, and a car, and just race!
Each of you choose your car carefully for speed. handling and power. Take the controls and hit him against the asphalt. This is the ultimate awesome split screen race, and it takes all your skill, courage, and split-second timing to stay on track, day after day, night after night, past obstacles, barriers, and pit stops. So prepare yourself. Get your engine running. And go for the nitro. There’s only room in the winner’s circle for one!
Graphics:
The graphics in this game do their job well: a neat splash screen is followed by a well-designed options screen that includes an impressive (by SNES standards) digitized photo behind the text. In the game itself, the graphics are quite good and the cars are well drawn. One effect in top gear that I’ve never seen anywhere else is the way during some races day changes to night and vice versa, making your visibility better or worse.
Also, the flashbacks are unique to each track, you can see the leaning tower of Pisa in Pisa, the Eiffel tower in Paris, etc. The pit lane is also well animated and the speedometer, the stopwatch… are laid out intuitively so you can quickly glance at them without crashing. I also liked the little speech bubbles that pop out of the side of the car whenever you crash into another car or use a nitro. For example, if you get caught in a group of cars and keep crashing into them, the driver will say something like ‘get out of my way’ or ‘are you blind?’
The controls:
The controls are, in a word, flawless. It has 4 control options, including a left-handed option where you hold the SNES pad upside down. Maneuvering your car is as simple as cornering. overtaking in high-speed corners is not a problem, as you can go full throttle on the outside or take a small drop in speed and overtake on the inside. In manual gear mode, a simple touch of the R or L buttons will allow you to shift up or down a gear.
Music and sound effects:
I have to say that I think Top Gear has the best music out of all the previous racing games. The title song is a classic (it’s also lotus1’s ending music in genesis) and the game tracks are perfect too and always seem perfect for whatever track you’re on, high notes seem to match sharp turns and generally , the music. It has a rhythm that gets the adrenaline pumping as you go through hairpin turns. The sound effects of the car (skidding, engine noise, etc.) are also perfectly recovered.
How to Play:
Top Gear’s strong point is its exciting gameplay. The fact that its permanently split screen (like Mario Kart) will always have you racing against another “human” player is its trump card. If you are playing in single player mode, the second players are controlled by SNES and will have to refuel just like you. In two player mode, player 2 will control this car. In each race there are 20 cars and your position on the starting grid is determined by your finishing position in the previous race, eg if you finished first you start the next race on 20th, 2 = 19th and so on.
When you finish first on any given track in a country, you earn 20 points, second place earns 15 points, third place earns 12, fourth place earns 10, and fifth place earns 8. That’s the cutoff point, though, because if you do not finish a given track in fifth place or better (out of 20 cars), you will not advance to the next track. Additionally, you must finish at least third or better in any country or continent to advance to the next country.
There are 32 tracks in eight areas around the world: the United States, South America (mainly in Brazil, but interestingly includes a track in Mexico), Italy, Germany, Japan, France (including a track in Monaco), the United Kingdom, and Scandinavia ( Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark).
In addition, you can choose one of four cars, most of which contrast sharply with each other. The white car is better for fuel consumption, but on average has the lowest speed, while the red car is the fastest on average, but drinks gasoline like water. The blue and purple cars share a similar speed and gas usage rate, but the blue car handles corners better than the purple car.
There are big differences between each car and playing the game with a different car makes each playthrough feel like a different game as depending on your car you could have a very maneuverable machine or something that drives like a brick on wheels. (when driving blue or red because it becomes much more difficult to overtake and avoid objects). Or you might have a vehicle that needs refueling once, twice, or not at all on a particular track.
It also varies acceleration, which is crucial when starting off or right after a crash or pit stop. Nitro power also varies from car to car, which affects the duration and overall speed increase. Top speed also comes into play, some cars ‘hold’ speed better than others and don’t seem to slow down as much after a nitro boost or a steep hill.
When you’re low on fuel you have to make a pit stop to do this, just head into the pit lane and when your fuel level is sufficient, pull out again. Pit stops require tactics, as pitting early in the race will give you more time to get up to speed. If you run out of fuel it doesn’t mean you’re out of the race as your car drifts forward for a while and if another car hits the rear you’ll start moving again.
Because of this, it is possible to do a full lap without fuel until you manage to finish or make it to the pits. Although you will most likely lose a lot of positions expecting to be run over or stopped in a lane where other cars do not even pass. However, in 2 player mode you can have the other guy give you a push.
The tracks are all well laid out and on the longer runs it is possible to have many different tactics on when to refuel or nitro. Some tracks like the Black Forest are real as this track is full of steep hills just like the real place. The speed in Top Gear is phenomenal, it’s not insanely fast, but it’s devastatingly fast and smooth compared to F-Zero and Mario Kart, which are slow and seem slow in comparison.
Challenge factor:
Top Gear has three levels of difficulty, the higher levels make the computer cars faster and more aggressive and also add more obstacles to the course. Although completing the game is not too difficult, you should try to finish first in each race, as any loser can finish fifth. You must also try to beat the course record shown on the pre-race screen.
Also, you should try to complete the game with all the cars, as in the red car, you can’t afford to crash and you can reach speeds of around 240 mph if you are good. The red car also consumes fuel like there is no tomorrow, but it goes much faster than the blue and white car. In summary, the white car is for beginners, the blue and purple cars for intermediate players, while the red one is for professionals.
Final Thoughts:
Top Gear doesn’t carry much weight in racing game history because it doesn’t have the super-fancy options, features, and add-ons like its sequels or other games that would follow on other systems did. And it’s a shame, because not only is Top Gear’s simplicity at its most compelling when it comes to strictly racing, but it also paved the way for other games to copy the system it implemented and make it even better, only from gameplay. point of view.
If you own a SNES and want to relive a glorious era of pre-finished racing games, Top Gear would be one you’ll want to get your hands on. The experience will arguably give you one of the best racing games in your collection.