Hyper Crash (Arcade)

 Longtime readers know I love those old top-down arcade racing games where your fuel bar acts as both a time limit and a health bar, and Hyper Crash is one of those, but it's not top down! It's a sprite scaling affair! And everyone with taste loves sprite scaling, so it surely can't lose, right?

 

Before I get onto whether or not the game lives up to its promise, though, I'll describe it in a bit more detail. It takes place on a long, linear track divided into stages, ala SEGA's Hang On, and also like Hang On, it's not really a traditional race with positions and rankings and such. Instead, it's more akin to something like the destructive road trip action of The Tousou Highway 2, as all the other cars exist solely to be smashed into and destroyed by you. And it's mandatory, too, since doing so replenishes your fuel, and even if you manage to drive perfectly, there's no way you're getting from one checkpoint to the next without running out.

 

The enemy cars on each stage each have their own gimmick, too, though I've only been able to see the first three in my time playing so far. On the first stage, the enemies have a jumping attack (which you also have, but since using it depletes a big chuck of your fuel meter, it seems counter-productive), the second stage enemies drop oil slicks behind them, and the third stage has enemies with super-durability. Which doesn't seem like a weapon, but the formations in which they drive, and the layout of the explosive barrels on that stage turn it into one.

 

There's a scoring system, too, and it's simple but elegant: you get 500 points for destroying a car, and that amount increases by 500 each time until it gets to every car being worth 5000 points, or until you yourself crash, in which case it resets. Such an emphasis is placed on score that the game has two high score tables! One for the hoi-polloi, and another for those skilled enough to finish the entire game. The finisher's high score table even goes as far as to add "Sir" to the front of every player's name!

 

So yeah, this is a good game, in case you haven't figured that out by now. I only discovered it a couple of weeks ago myself, but I've really been enjoying it, and it's going to be one of my MAME regulars for quite some time to come.