Road Rash

ROAD RASH is a fast and furious motorcycle racing game.

It was developed with Papyrus, the designers of NASCAR Racing, so you know it has a good racing background.

You’ll be dodging traffic, pedestrians, and cops as you race to qualify for the Road Rash Cup.

This isn’t a pleasant outing though, as your opponents are mean Rashers with serious attitudes. If you’re lucky they’ll give you a few hints about racing. More likely, they’ll try to bash your brains out with a chain as they roar past.

The action is very anti-social in Road Rash. Basically, if you can see it, you can crash into it, or smash it. This includes your fellow racers, traffic officers, pedestrians, and even poodles. Indeed, one of the tricks of the game is to force an opponent into the path of an oncoming car.

You can punch, kick, use a weapon such as a length of chain or metal bar, and even steal a policeman’s truncheon.

Scattered throughout the manuals are “lawyers’ blurbs” basically saying, “kids, don’t try this at home”. As they put it: “In the real world, if you run from the police you’ll go to jail; if you fall off your bike, you might not get back up”. Quite right.

There are five different locations to race through.

The city boasts lots of traffic, heaps of pedestrians, and an awful lot of buildings just waiting for you to smash into.

The peninsula is a rich suburb, so watch out for a large police presence. Expect lots of sharp corners and sheer cliffs on the Pacific Highway, while the Sierra Nevada sports a lot of trees (not to mention bears). The Napa Valley is probably the easiest ride, though you have to watch out for Sunday drivers – it’s very easy to zoom right up into a dead-end collision.

Each track has five levels, which get progressively longer and harder. You have to finish first in each track before you qualify for the next level.

If you do well in a race you can expect a nice payout. By saving up these winnings you can go to Olley’s Skoot-a-rama, and buy a brand new bike. You start off with a lowly rat-bike, but you’ll need a sport-bike and eventually a super-bike to do well at the higher levels.

Of course, there are ways to lose money too. If you get caught by the police, expect a hefty fine. If you trash your bike, you’ll be forking out a lot for repairs.

The graphics in Road Rash are excellent. Nice clear SVGA gives you a great view out over your handlebars. With all the graphics options turned to high, the game ran perfectly on a Pentium 100.

The sound is good too. With stereo speakers hooked up, you can hear which side an opponent is approaching from to pass you, and get that weapon ready. There is music from a variety of different bands, including Soundgarden, and it even includes a couple of music videos. There are lots of video sequences within the game. Some are rather humorous, especially when you get pulled over by the police.

The multi-player options of Road Rash add to the game. You can race up to eight friends across a network, or go head-to-head via modem.

Road Rash requires a Pentium 75-megahertz, 16 megabytes of Ram, SVGA graphics, double-speed CD-Rom drive, and Windows 95.

It supports soundcards and joysticks. It recommends a Pentium 120, 2Mb SVGA card, and quad-speed CD-Rom drive.

The newest of the racing games out, Road Rash is definitely not politically correct. It is good fun though, and I guess it’s up to you whether you think of pedestrians as obstacles to dodge, or targets . . .