I spent many an hour, day even in my local arcade playing Super Sprint – Atari's mid-80s top-down racing game that gave you a full steering wheel to spin your car around fairly basic tracks. And when it came out on computer (the Commodore 64, for me) I was equally glued to it at home.
Yes, it's reasonably basic in comparison with today's arcade racers, but without it we would never have got Micro Machines – arguably one of the best console games of all time, full stop – and even today it is as addictive as heck.
I've just found that out because I've found the NES version online and playable in a browser to play for free. You can check out the Tengen conversion on Retrogames.cz too and you'll see what I mean.
It's about as simple to pick up as it gets – just use the left and right arrow keys to turn your tiny F1 car and Z to accelerate – but as you progress through the tracks it gets fiendish.
What has prompted this bout of nostalgic tomfoolery? Well, Atari has released new details on its reboot, NeoSprint – an all-new game for console and PC that is very much in the spirit of Super Sprint and its sequel, Championship Sprint.
As with the original, it features top-down tracks (in this case isometric) and small cars to whip around. It is multiplayer too, but ups the ante to eight-player action, whereas the original arcade machine only had space for four steering wheels.
There are ramps and jumps, and you get to choose your car design and colour.
New to the series is the ability to create your own tracks to race on with friends and other online players, and the game has been tested in early access for a while now, so hopefully players have helped iron out any foibles.
There's a campaign mode too, with new decorations and car liveries to be won.
It'll be available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One and PS4 from the summer, and I for one cannot wait.
I'll just crack on with the online version of Super Sprint in the meantime.
