Amiga Power


Wacky Races

Author: Colin Campbell
Publisher: Hi-Tec
Machine: Amiga 500

 
Published in Amiga Power #8

Wacky Races

It seems to me that life was a good deal happier when the likes of Penelope Pitstop, the Ant Hill Mob, Dastardly and Muttley, Peter Perfect, the spooky family, the, um, cavemen, and (oh dear) the other ones I've forgotten graced our tea-time TV screens.

For those who're too young or culturally closeted to remember, Wacky Races was (and still is) a classic Hanna Barbera cartoon, based loosely on Sixties comedy race films like Those Magnificent Man In Their Flying Machines (but with cars). And it was fab.

Great news, then, that Hi-Tec - who've worked their way through Top Cat, Hong Kong Phooey and the like - have finally got round to turning Wacky Races into a pleasingly simple comedy driving game in which you, as dastardly Dick, have to out-wit and out-drive your bizarre opponents by either (a) going faster than them, or (b) (and better) sabotaging their route.

Wacky Races

Unpleasantness involves setting up simple traps in the way of the other cars (which takes place in a little platform sub game) or merely shoving them off the road using an unreliable spike which pops out the front of the Dickmobile. Even taking into account these complications, it's fairly simple two-dimensional stuff, though colourfully presented and with a fairly catchy line in addictive gameplay.

Kids' stuff perhaps, and not quite up there with the best of original budgie releases, but it's good fun for a while, and - hurrah! - it's got all those great Wacky Races characters in it.

The Bottom Line

Well worth the asking price, especially if you are blessed with younger members of the family (or oldies on a nostalgia kick). Humorous and addictive in a cheap and cheerful kind of way.

Colin Campbell

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