Basic requirements
In all of Micro Machines' head-to-head games, the basic principle is that you and one other player (computer or human, or even your dog if it's relatively dextrous and coordinated and heavily into racing games, I suppose) race around a track as normal, except that instead of trying to get round quicker than the other guy (or dog), you're simply trying to put enough space between you over a short distance that the scrolling of the course overtakes your opponent and he (or it) disappears off the screen.
When this happens, the player in front wins a point, and the one who was forced off the screen loses a point (you start with four each), and when the score gets to 8-0 either way, the game's up.
It's a brilliant way of circumventing many of the problems usually found in two-player race games of this ilk (like, say, Supercars 2 where the screen gets split to show both cars, but then inevitably gives each one such a tiny field of vision as to make spotting corners and so on practically impossible), but it's not without mishaps either. In one-player head-to-head, the scrolling actually follows the car behind, so that to win a point you actually have to race off the edge of the screen yourself.
What this means, naturally enough, is that as you get ahead of the computer player, you end up with about two pixels warning of upcoming corners, which kind of knackers all the good of the idea in the first place.
But hey, what kind of saddo plays head-to-head games against the computer? This was always meant to be a game played by two real people (talented dogs notwithstanding), and as such it works like a dream.
The extra-specially great thing about the two-player game, though, is that there's so much variation in it – you can race the fast and relatively hazard-free sandpit tracks where it's just a simple all-out speed trial, the obstacle-strewn pool tables where negotiating the pool balls, playing card ramps, and secret tunnels concealed in pockets adds an element of maze navigation to the proceedings, the precarious desktop levels where your lightning-quick but near uncontrollable sports car goes plunging off the table to its doom on every other corner, or the slow moving but brilliant toyroom tank levels, where every time your opponent gets in front of you, you can blow him to smithereens with a well-placed shell up the turret.
Not enough for you? Well, you've still got the bathroom stages (watch out for that lethal plughole whirlpool), the breakfast table (sticky baked beans everywhere and more vertigo-inducing edge-of-the-table drops), the helicopter races (out in the greenhouse for some sunshine, but careful of those high-powered fans and sprinklers) or the workbench (littered with sticky glue blobs, carelessly discarded nails and screwdrivers, and unhelpful CLI prompts), so stop complaining, alright?
And what do you know? I haven't even touched on the super-fantasticness of the graphic locations yet, have I? Well, they're just – oh, out of room again. Damn.
- Rating – 88%
- Uppers – Great locations, great control, great selection of game variations… well, it's just great. Alright?
- Downers – Not having the parallax scrolling for the floors leaves things looking a bit shoddy. And the scrolling on the one-player head-to-head mode is a bit overly demanding. The one-player modes in general are a bit limited, in fact.
- The bottom line – Superb racer, pretty fair fun on your own but amazing with two players. Oddly enough, it's absolutely brilliant.
- The bottom line (for A1200) – No difference at the moment. A much-enhanced AGA version is in the pipeline for later in the year. Pray for parallaxing, eh?
