Overdrive
| Developer: Psionic | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Team 17 | Sound: |
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| Year: 1993 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Racing | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2 by modem | Rating: |
6/10 | |
A top-down racing game, released in the shadow of Micro Machines and perhaps unfairly overlooked. Its characteristics: speed, handling, wide tracks and relatively simple (and “square”) layouts. I nonetheless find the field of vision too narrow, which makes negotiating corners at full speed risky (same problem with Roadkill and in most “scrolling screen” games where the camera remains centered on the car).
It includes 20 circuits and four vehicles to drive (4 × 4, buggy, sports car and F1). Races are contested against only two opponents, with “personalities” supposedly differentiating their driving style. On the criticism side, loading times are a bit long; eight laps is too many; and the use of digitized voices is nice, but when they trigger on a bonus you pick up every five seconds (like a “turbo pad”), it becomes extremely annoying!
Note: The same year, a namesake game developed by Infacto, a shooting game, was released, which I was unable to get working.
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