Road Fighter

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Road Fighter is a top-to-bottom racing game, so your main goal is to drive fast and reach the check point before your car is out of fuel, to continue to the next stage. There are many obstacles on route like cars, tractors (that drop oil drums), tankers, oil slicks, road blocks and other hazards. Hitting cars causes skid and possible a spin-out that must be skillfully controlled by counter steering and braking or you will just crash and explode. The action is pretty fast and smooth, and the gameplay gets rather difficult at times due to its speed and the narrow curves, turns and bends. There are occasionally some bonus items (depicted as purple hearts) that grant you with extra, precious fuel. Road Fighter spawned two sequels in its time, the Midnight Run: Road Fighter 2 in 1995 and Winding Heat in 1996, respectively.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics on the MSX home computers are colorful and the action is quite fast. Note that this is a vertical perspective racing game, and (well) the car cannot turn at 180 degrees when running, but you can only move it left-right on the x-axis when passing from (hopefully) narrow corners! The sound is quite satisfactory with sound effects of your car's engine and the explosion when hitting an obstacle or crashing into other cars.