Auto Racing (Intellivision, 1980)
Entry posted by Mezrabad
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Auto Racing (Intellivision, 1980)
We've seen an overhead view in our driving games before. Indy 500 and Speedway took the "camera" and hung it high over the track so that the field of vision encompassed the entire course. Such a viewpoint is useful for seeing "the big picture" but it limits the amount of detail one need bother to show.
Auto Racing for the Intellivision takes a different perspective, or, more specifically, a lower, more mobile perspective. In this case, the camera hangs directly over the player's car at all times, moving with it, and the vantage point is so low that we can only see a portion of the track at any given time. This gives the game a feeling of driving in a larger, contiguous world rather than several different isolated arenas. In fact, the five tracks offered are all on one big map. You can see and even access the other tracks by leaving your chosen course and driving through someone's lawn! Like putting shifty eyes on a blackjack dealer, this feature adds nothing to the gameplay in itself, but gives an ineffable boost to the experience overall.
While some of the Indy 500 games are about getting around the track as quickly as possible during a single race, Auto Racing is about trying to improve your driving skills so that you can get around each turn of the course as efficiently as possible. Navigating your, um, auto, around a course is a collection of subtle steering nudges, careful braking and controlled drifting . . . LOL, does anyone ever call them "autos"? I mean, "auto racing" isn't an unfamiliar term, but "auto" by itself just sounds weird. "Hey, you kids, get off of my auto!", "I need a jump, my auto battery died"! *snort* "I've got to hurry, I'll be late for my Auto Pool", heh. heheh. Yeah, what was I saying again, something about navigating a track? You want to be good at navigating the track because if you go off the track you may hit a tree, a house or have to crawl painfully slow through a lake. The grass also slows you down a good deal, so keep off of that, too.
Something realistic about the steering: if your car is not moving, you can't change direction. Yes, this seems like it would be an obvious requirement, but its addition reminds me of how much I didn't miss it in Indy 500, where cars could spin in whatever direction you wanted, regardless of motion. The version of this game that I have uses relative steering. You push the disc to the right of "midnight" and your car steers to its right. There's also a version called absolute steering which points the car in whatever direction you push on the disc. Can't say which I'd prefer as I haven't tried the absolute version. I suppose one is just as easy to get used to as the other.
You get to choose your "auto", by the way. You've got five in your garage each with its own intrinsic characteristics. Besides each having a unique color, some are faster than others while others handle the "cornering" better. Two of the cars are differently colored, but identical in speed and handling. This is for the purpose of two-players racing against each other.
Which brings me to where this title can really do whatever the opposite of shine is: two-player races on Auto Racing can be a real drag. Because of the close overhead perspective, (which is a Good Thing in single player,) the maximum distance between you and your opponent is limited. If one of you gets to far ahead of the other, you are both yanked back to a checkpoint. For instance, if your opponent slides into a tree or a house and you keep going...yank. I suppose it could be enjoyable if both racers were skilled enough to not crash at all, but one race can take a long time otherwise.
It is Auto Racing that has introduced me to the affliction I'm calling "Intellivision Thumb". The disc on the Intellivision controller is interesting and innovative, but in trying to control my race car I'm afraid it can become a little painful. Perhaps this is the type of pain one gets used to over time, but while intently trying to improve my cornering, I began to feel discomfort which eventually outweighed my desire to continue playing.
If I were more literarily inclined, I might do more of a compare and contrast between Auto Racing and Indy 500 since the two were similarly themed games on systems known to be rivals. However, since I'm getting tired of typing, and you're probably getting tired of reading I'll leave it at this: Auto Racing is more realistic than fun and Indy 500 is more fun than realistic but both have their thrills and laughs.
Sorry, no screenshots or videos this week. I'm finding that the prospect of adding those is more often a demotivator to writing an entry due to the extra work involved. I think I'm going to focus more on actually playing the games and writing about them rather than adding the "multimedia flair" with the hope that this will allow me to get to more games and entries. I mean, I'm still in 1980 for crying out loud, I was hoping to be in 1983 by now! 
Next entry will be Armor Battle. 18995
EDIT: crap, I didn't save my initial edits correctly so you were forced to read my crappy grammar and poor spelling which I thought I'd corrected. Jeesh, I'm going to have to hire an editor someday.
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