Rock n' Roll Racing - Super Famicom/SNES

Let's be honest, until at least Ridge Racer on the PlayStation, 3d-style racing games were mostly derivative, definitely haven't aged well and most honestly weren't very good. It really took the jump to fully modeled polygonal tracks and cars to break the "driving towards the apex of a triangle" sameness that many early racing games suffered from.

This view of racing was largely unchanged for years

Sega, of course pushed this view of racing to impossible extremes with their Super Scalar sprite scaling technology and tried to fake a true 3d experience for years -- eventually even replacing the road triangle with dozens of quickly scaling sprites. Even Taito's fabulous Night Striker pushed the concept about as far as it could go.

It was obvious, even in the mid-80s that this approach was an evolutionary dead-end for racing games, but technology simply couldn't offer a more realistic experience. One alternative, the top-down racer like Atari's 1986 Super Sprint.

An alternate view of the world.

This kind of view, rather than trying to take you into the experience of racing an actual car, more closely resembled playing with slot cars. Which, if you were a kid in the mid-80s, was awesome.

The technical barrier to making these kinds of games fun and good looking is much lower -- and I think that means that the developers had more time to tweak the game mechanics and add things like power ups and racing physics to the mix. To help give the games a little graphical boost, a common variant was the isometric racer. Unlike isometric platformers or puzzle games, this view actually works, and it works really well.

One of the earliest of these was Racing Destruction Set (RDS) on the Commodore 64. Which, while a fine game for 1985, didn't really create an immediate impact. However, it set the template for how an isometric racer should work. By zooming in on the action, it limits the view of the course. Since you are no longer an omniscient god with a view of the entire track, some of the tension of a first-person racer remains -- you don't see where all your opponents are all the time. It also introduced a combat system that made the game more than just running flat out till the end of the race.

In the arcades this was ignored and we ended up with 1989s Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road. While fun, it was clear that it lacked the deeper strategy of an isometric combat racer, and it moved the viewpoint back out to a single screen overview of the action.

However, in 1988, these lessons weren't lost and we got one of the most popular isometric racers of all time, Rare's R.C. Pro-Am.

R.C. Pro-Am (RPA), proved that RDS's template for how an isometric racer should work was the right one.

Fast forward a few years to 1991 and it's time to make a racer for the SNES. At this point, despite being one of the most powerful home systems at the time, the choice for making a racer were pretty much driving into a triangle or yet another F-Zero/Super Mario Kart clone -- and there are tons of each. Looking back a few years, developers Silicon & Synapse realized that a third, mostly ignored option existed.

Reaching back more than half a decade, they realized that a modern (for the time) isometric racer might fit the bill. They decided to combine some of the slick breeziness of RPA with the deeper play mechanics of RDS and ended up producing RPM Racing. RPM is a good game, but it just doesn't really have a voice. Despite being one of the only racers of it's type, it doesn't stand out in the crowd.

Still, they were on to something, the formula was just off a bit. In a weird example of where the marketing department actually helped product development, the idea of using licensed rock music in a RPM sequel was hatched. Add in a bit of 90's "'tude", speed it up a bit and we get the excellent Rock n' Roll Racing (RnR).

One of the first things you notice about the game is the amazing renditions of popular rock songs. The work that went into bending to the SNES sound chip to produce such excellent tunes remains one of the high-points of SNES sound design. Hammond B3 organs, rock drum kit, bass and wailing guitar solos are all intact. It really wasn't until optical disks became the norm for videogames that a better sounding rendition of these songs could be heard in a game.

It's also a virtuoso example of how much better games sounded on the SNES vs. the Genesis. Despite a noble effort, the Genesis port of this game just doesn't have the same feel because the music doesn't push the pace along in the same way. To be honest, I quite often just kept playing because I wanted to know which one of the half-dozen tracks would be next.

And I think it's this amped up music that forced the designers to push the game's pace along. The almost lethargic RPM Racing turns into a frenetic, pedal to the metal rush in Rock n' Roll Racing.

Game mechanics-wise, there's really nothing surprising about RnR. You drive in a race with 3 competitors, firing weapons and dropping mines. Finish in the top 3 and you collect purse money you can put towards upgrades for your car or even buy a new car (better cars are unlocked as the levels progress). Tracks get harder as the game moves on and your opponents are upgrading just like you. Knowing when to buy an upgrade and when to save for a more expensive purchase it part of a fairly deep strategy system.

Combat is pretty straight forward, you can fire projectiles, drop mines or boost your speed temporarily. The specifics of the weapons vary a bit depending on which car you are upgrading. You can also upgrade your engine, traction, armor etc.

One of the really great things about RnR is the smooth and continuous progression of difficulty through level design and the constant upgrading of your opponents. Controls are spot on. Power slide around corners, or as you upgrade your grip hit a racing line, it's almost effortless. Weapon usage is simple and intuitive.

About the only negative I can say about the racing experience, and the only point where I hit some frustration was lining my vehicle up in the isometric perspective to make a jump, only to land off the track and lose a few seconds -- or the race. This happened numerous times and I never seemed to get any better at it. Most of the time it's not a problem, but a few tracks are designed to make this a challenge.

Graphics are pretty good. They may not be the best the SNES ever saw, but they're a clear upgrade over RPM and have a sense of style and direction. Vehicles are cool and muscular monster trucks and aerodynamic tanks, tracks have spikes or Giger-esque biomechanic stylings. The art direction is solid and nothing detracts from the game.

Sound effects are a mixed bag, but to be honest, you'll be so busy racing to the music that it doesn't really matter much. This is an approach I think that was later copied by games such as Wipeout and Ridge Racer.

RnR is much loved but it's had troubled offspring. What seemed ripe for formulaic sequels simply didn't get any. Rock and Roll Racing 2 for the Playstation was kind of an unremarkable dud that like many early 3d games hasn't aged well at all. However, a spiritual copy, Motor Rock, is a love letter to the original and I highly encourage players looking for a modern take on RnR to get it if you can hunt it down. It nails everything about what made RnR special.