• Tag Archives Interplay

  • Rock N’ Roll Racing (Super Nintendo)

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment

    ROCK N’ ROLL RACiNG
    Interplay
    Super NES
    1993

    Rock N’ Roll Racing was an underrated racing game released for the Super Nintendo in 1993 by Interplay. It was developed by Silicon & Synapse who later became Blizzard Entertainment. I say underrated but that isn’t really fair. It was awarded best driving game of 1993 by Electronic Gaming Monthly. It just seems like it wasn’t as well known as past popular racers in roughly the same genre like R.C. Pro-Am.

    Rock N’ Roll Racing was originally developed as a sequel to RPM Racing. At the end of development, licensed music was added by the marketing department and the name was changed. Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit fans will be interested to know that the logic and A.I. engine for Rock N’ Roll Racing (and RPM Racing) actually came from Racing Destruction Set which is similar to these games in a lot of ways.

    If you aren’t actually familiar with any of those games, Rock n’ Roll Racing is a vehicular combat racing game. The most popular game that it is close to is probably R.C. Pro-Am. The basic goals are the same. Race other cars while also trying to destroy them and not be destroyed. Between races you can upgrade various aspects of your car (weapons, armor, engine, etc.) It’s huge fun to play against the computer and even more fun to play against a friend. The game also has a password system that allows you to save your game at certain points.

    There were also ports of this game for the Genesis and then much later in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance. The Genesis version is not nearly as good as the Super Nintendo version. The graphics and sound effects are just not up to the standard set by the Super NES. The Game Boy Advance version is very similar to the Super Nintendo version.

    This related series of games has a long lineage starting with Racing Destruction Set and continuing on in various ways almost until today. There was a sequel released in 1997 for the PlayStation titled Red Asphalt (prefixed with Rock & Roll Racing 2 in Europe) but this one really isn’t as good as the original. Then there was an Indiegogo campaign by a company called Yard Team for a game called Motor Rock that was released in 2013. It used many assets from the original Rock N’ Roll Racing in addition to new content. It was released on Steam but pulled at the end of 2013 because of copyright infringement claims from Blizzard. However, their website (yardteam.org) appears to still offer a way to register the game through the Steam app with a key that can be obtained with a “small donation”.

    Rock N’ Roll Racing is definitely a game worth picking up for the Super Nintendo. Avoid the Genesis version and the later PlayStation sequel but the PC/Steam version might be worth a try (I haven’t tried this one yet myself). If you like games like R.C. Pro-Am or RPM Racing or even Racing Destruction Set then Rock N’ Roll Racing should be right up your alley.





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  • Alone In The Dark

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment

    Publisher: Infogrames, Interplay (NA DOS, NA 3DO), Krisalis Software (Acorn 32-bit), Arrow Micro-Techs Corp. (FM Towns, PC-98), Pony Canyon (JP 3DO), MacPlay (Mac), Atari (iOS)
    Developer: Infogrames, Krisalis Software (Acorn 32-bit, 3DO), Arrow Micro-Techs Corp. (FM Towns, PC-98), Kung Fu Factory (iOS)
    Platform: MS-DOS, Mac, Acorn 32-bit, FM Towns, PC-98, 3DO, iOS
    Year: 1992 (DOS), 1993 (FM Towns, PC-98), 1994 (Mac, 3DO), 1995 (Acorn 32-bit), 2014 (iOS)

    http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/160017813483/kazucrash-alone-in-the-dark-publisher

    Alone in the Dark was released in 1993 for DOS based PCs and was the very first 3D Survival Horror game. It was ported to the 3D0 later in 1993, to the Macintosh in 1994 and, much later in 2014, to iOS. Alone in the Dark was a very influential game and was at least in part responsible for later games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill being developed.

    Other than the iOS release, there really haven’t been any remakes but it did spawn a number of sequels. The latest is the sixth installment which is titled “Alone in the Dark: Illumination” and was released for Windows based computers in 2015. However, while the original game was almost universally well regarded, the latest is complete garbage if you go by the reviews.

    The game (or at least the series) has also spawned two movies. The first is titled “Alone in the Dark” and is loosely based on th 4th game in the series. It was released in 2005 and apparently it is widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made. So of course there was a sequel, Alone in the Dark II, which was only a slight improvement.

    Not all of the sequels were bad. For example, the original DOS versions of 2 and 3 were pretty good and the fourth installment (The New Nightmare) which was a reboot of the series received positive reviews (exponentially better than the movie) but none ever quite managed to meet the high standards set by the first.





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