Super Sprint (Arcade) review "The top of an outdated genre isn't a bad place to be. Super Sprint will always have a place in any respectable classic arcade. Give it a shot to see what the cranky old-timers used to play; I bet you'll have trouble walking away."

Super Sprint lets up to three players race simultaneously in a four-car challenge, with AI opponents filling any remaining slots. Since the track is pretty small, each race lasts four laps. Puddles slow vehicles down, whereas oil slicks, mud, other racers, and even tornadoes cause cars to spin out . . . which is a problem unless you're a racing genius who can spin 1080 degrees and still come out driving in a straight line. Opponents in the early tracks don't put up much of a struggle, but learning the best line for every course is imperative to reach the fabled Super Speedway (which I've yet to accomplish, since I refuse to credit-feed).

Throughout each race, extra points and wrenches appear on the track. Drivers in the real world would get pretty pissed if some bum kept hurling wrenches onto the track, but they're a desirable bonus in Super Sprint: collect three to improve the vehicle's performance.

Improving the vehicle can only do so much; skill is still the most important key to success. Certainly, avoiding the walls is a good thing -- ram one too forcefully and the car EXPLODES. A helicopter always drops off a replacement, but an endless supply of money can't buy back the time lost during a crash. Players will quickly spot a few shortcuts littered throughout the tracks; perhaps a bit of wall is missing, or perhaps a BIG RED GATE just opened. Taking advantage of those opportunities will also help.

One of the tracks includes what appears to be a diagonal shortcut to the finish line. I say "appears" because the diagonal path is much narrower than the main road; unskilled players who try to cut across will bounce into the walls and, ultimately, take longer than if they had simply followed the wider path.

Other tracks feature numerous sequential corners and "S" curves. My initial impulse was to simply hold the accelerator down and try to force my way through via radical turning, often resulting in crashes or speed-reducing wall-bounces. I eventually realized that the same drifting techniques I learned in first-person-perspective racers work here. Drifting will help negotiate the twisty tracks with a minimum loss in speed; the car even looks like it's drifting. Super Sprint may appear simple on the surface, but it was designed by someone with experience and insight. Consider me impressed.

Championship Sprint, a sequel released in the same year, only allowed two players and featured inferior tracks. It also added the "higher helicopter speed" upgrade, which is useless if one simply avoids crashing. Other knock-offs, even good ones like Super Off-Road, never quite matched Super Sprint's ease of play. Companies eventually stopped making fixed-screen racers altogether, for reasons that become obvious after playing enough of them. One screen of track simply isn't sufficient for complex course designs, and behind-the-car perspectives better capture the feel of hairpin corners.

With that being said, the top of an outdated genre isn't a bad place to be. Super Sprint will always have a place in any respectable classic arcade. Give it a shot to see what the cranky old-timers used to play; I bet you'll have trouble walking away.

//Zig

Staff review by Zigfried (November 07, 2010) Zigfried likes writing about whales and angry seamen, and often does so at the local pub.