Sheer Coincidence, I’m Sure
Thursday, June 5th, 2008It can’t possibly be by design that Uniracers (1994, DMA Design) uses several of the same sound effects as Zoop (1995, Hookstone Productions,) right? Can it? Every time I landed a flip, I thought I was going to shapeshift into a differently-coloured wheeled vehicle, like a tricycle. “Triracers” doesn’t have the same ring to it, but it’d be a good campaign for a sequel: “Three wheels. Three dimensions.” Make that a good campaign for a bad sequel. The reason Uniracers works is because it’s the only game that dared to turn racing into a purely two-dimensional exercise. Even Rad Racer and Mach Rider presented the appearance of three dimensions by letting you peer into the horizon, gauging the distance to the next car (or alien biker-sentry) and adjusting your speed and position accordingly. The only trips Uniracers takes into the mysterious Z-axis are a few tricks involving spinning and going completely perpendicular to the track; even corkscrew sections leave you oriented correctly, if a bit dizzy. DMA’s early games, which also includes puzzler classic Lemmings, seemed to foreshadow their future as Rockstar North: relentlessly marching forward to a goal, ignoring any optional turns that wouldn’t fit on the plane of a TV screen.
Actually, the striped racing rails of Uniracers remind me of the snakes in Battletoads, which were an equal pain in the ass to learn to ride. There’re no spikes around to smack down the ‘cycles, though.