Al Unser Jr Arcade Racing (Mac) Preview

Originally from Inside Mac Games. October, 1995.

NOTE: Screen shots and information presented in this article are based on a pre-release version of Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing and are subject to change before final release. This article is not a review.

Want to create a great arcade racing game? I talking a real heart-pounding, fast and furious, gut-wrenching, high-flying arcade racing game?

Sure!

Ok, well, first you’ll need to throw out realism.

Got it!

And while you’re at it, throw out crashes, pit stops, and the fuel gauge.

Are you serious?

Yea, who needs’em anyway! Ok, so what do you end up with? Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing, but of course!

Al Unser what?

Ok, ok, I’ll take it slowly. Well, you see, after playing Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing for the last hour, I my head is in a daze. Whew! This sucker’s fast!

So, like, what’s the game like?

Give me a minute, I was just about to get to that. Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing is just that, an intense arcade racing game. Developed by Mindscape (specifically Mindscape Bordeaux, a french subsidiary of Mindscape), Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing was recently released for Windows 95 (eeek) and will soon be making its way onto the Macintosh.

Which Mode to Play

Al Unser offers three modes of gameplay: Practice, Timed, and Championship. In practice mode, you can familiarize yourself with a particular course (15 different racing circuits are available and range from simple circuits to challenging intricate tracks) or to get a feel for your car. In this mode, there are no time limits or any other drivers to deal with. It just you and the pavement. For more of a challenge, you can try Timed mode. In this mode, you can choose any one of the 15 race tracks and you must race not only against other racers, but against the clock as well.

What do you mean, the clock?

It’s just like an arcade game. After you start the race, a timer on the top right hand corner of the screen shows how much time you have left before your “quarter runs out.” Ah, but if you pass a checkpoint before the clock runs out, you are rewarded with more time on the clock. Simple huh?

Gee, I guess, dohhh….

Moving on to Championship mode. In this mode, you race against all the competing racers on the Indy Circuit (15 courses) across an entire season.

Off To The Races

Once you’ve picked a mode, you’re ready to race. All the races start with a rolling start and the computer controls your steering until you reach the start line. Once the race begins, you’re on your own. Using the arrow keys or mouse you control the steering, while the space bar acts as your accelerator. Those who prefer stick shift can use the up and down arrow keys to shift up or down. There are a few advantages to using the stick shift versus automatic shifting. In Al Unser, you tend to crash a lot into walls, and especially into other computer players. Shifting on the fly allows you to down shift to a lower gear to “speed” up before going back to a higher gear. And finally, to use the brake you press the….never mind, trust me, you’ll never use it.

So how does it run?

Well, as I mentioned before, the arcade racing in Al Unser is fast and furious. At the start of the race a multitude of cars will surround you and you’ll no doubt bump into a few cars in the beginning when everyone is bunched up. But since you can’t take any damage, who cares, right? The goal here, of course, is to get to the front of the pack and win the race. Negotiating around the other cars can be a difficult thing to do. In the harder difficulty levels your opponents become more intelligent and drive more aggressively. As a result, they’ll try to get in your way to prevent a pass. In this case, you’ll need to do some fancy driving like dodging left and then quickly right to get past your opponent.

When I first tried the game, I had a difficult time steering the car correctly. I found using the keyboard was a little easier to drive than the mouse. The final version of the game should have sets for most popular joysticks and game pads. Anyway, after a few races, I was finally able to take a lead for the first time. Then I noticed something really odd….NO REAR VIEW MIRRORS! How the heck can you tell how far ahead you are or who’s on your tail? Well, I dug up the manual, and lo and behold, it turns out there is no way to turn on the rear view mirrors, there are no. Wait a sec, what the…. Ah, but then I found the answer. Instead, you need to use the 1 key to toggle between a course map and a local scanner that appears on the top right corner of the map. Using these two features, you can keep track of your position in relation to your opponents.

Graphics

The graphics in Al Unser Arcade Racing are spectacular. Everything from the textured pavement to the detailed buildings show off the game’s well designed and colorful graphics rivaling those found in actual arcades. On an 8500 the game screams (as it should). On a low end Power Mac, such as a 6100/60, it ran quite well, but for my frame rate tastes, I lowered some of the details to speed up the frame rate. Overall, it should run great on any Power Mac. Although we weren’t able to test an 040 version of the game, we were told it will run on high end 040 machines (the demo on the IMG CD-ROM is for Power Macs only, it will not run on 040 machines).

Gamers, Start Your Engines

Unlike the upcoming Indy Car Racing II where realism is everything, Al Unser Arcade Racing throws realism out the door. Not that there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, the game was designed from the beginning to be just like a racing game you would play in an arcade. In many ways, Mindscape has achieved this with a product that is down right fun. Look for Al Unser Racing sometime in October or November. Happy racing…

NOTE: The demo is for Power Macs only!