Monthly Archives: August 2013

Video Carnage 18 — TurboGrafx-16

It’s time to revisit everybody’s favourite 8-bit system!  I mean, the 16-bit system with the 8-bit system feel! (EDIT: The TG-16 actually has an 8-bit CPU.  The graphics processors are 16-bit.) I ragged long and hard on the TurboGrafx-16 when I reviewed some golf games for it.  A lot of TG16 games really don’t hold […]

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Video Carnage 17 — Atari 7800

Oy.  Here we find ourselves in Underwhelmsville again, population 7800.  Like I mentioned before in The Golfyssey, the Atari 7800 was shelved for two years before it was released in an attempt to compete with none other than the legendary NES.  The graphics are shitty, regardless of how many terrible-looking sprites this system can handle […]

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Video Carnage 16 — Amiga

Even though the Amiga first came out in 1985, the games I’ll be looking at today were all from the 1990s.  The Amiga was already ahead of its time, but now we’ll be looking into the future for one stop on our journey through console and computer hardware. If this unsettles you, don’t worry.  Our […]

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Video Carnage 15 — Sega Master System

Sega not only had better hardware specs in the Master System compared to the NES, but they also had a history of making successful and critically acclaimed arcade racing games like “Hang-On“.  It is because of these factors that when you compare the game libraries of the NES and Master system, you will find the […]

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Video Carnage 14 – Nintendo Entertainment System

The NES has a massive library of games, so I don’t have to go scraping the barrel for racers.  I’m happy about this because I really don’t like having to play through bad racing games just to tell you all what you already can guess. Excitebike (1984) You can tell from that iconic box art […]

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Video Carnage 13 — Commodore 16 & Plus/4

As I skip along my merry, chronological way through consoles and computers passed in these reviews, I sometimes feel like I’m taking a step back or two.  When I played that stinking Vectrex racing game, I could have sworn it was belched forth from the bowels of the 1970s.  This happened when I did the […]

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Video Carnage 12 — Sega SG-1000

When I talked about the SG-1000 before, I mentioned that it had more potential than the games library would lead one to believe.  It looks to me to be about as powerful as the ColecoVision, and I actually use the MEKA emulator to play games for both systems.  Unfortunately for Sega, that potential was rarely realized, […]

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Video Carnage 11 — Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 computer had dozens of racing games, and they ranged widely in quality.  I played a fair amount of these as I was growing up, and only a handful of the ones I remember really stand out as great games. Motor Mania (1982) Ah, the joys of loading games from cassette!  Who wouldn’t […]

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Video Carnage 10 — Atari 5200

Recently, I rediscovered the Atari 5200, thanks to an emulator that fixed the console’s horribly flawed non-centering joysticks.  Being released shortly before the 1983 industry crash, this system had a short life, so there weren’t many games released for it.  Only one racing game was released, and it is a port of an ultra-popular arcade […]

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Video Carnage 09 — Vectrex

The Vectrex is weird.  At first glance, it looks like a rather bad idea.  A self-contained video game system that plays games only in black and white.  If you wanted colour, you had to use the coloured translucent overlays that came with the games.  When this came out in 1982, most people probably looked at […]

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Video Carnage 08 — ColecoVision

A great, powerful system that was also bunged by goofy telephone-joystick controllers, the ColecoVision was another high-profile victim of the 1983 video game market crash.  This console had some serious power packed inside, and it could handle most arcade ports better than any other home console back in 1982. And then the crash, and Coleco […]

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Video Carnage 07 — Arcadia 2001

Well, I haven’t exactly been looking forward to this.  Have you even heard of a video game console called the Arcadia 2001?  There isn’t much to say about it, other than: rushed, badly programmed rip-off games dead-on-arrival for U.S. release terrible graphics and even worse sound Emerson got sued by Atari for making clones of […]

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Video Carnage 06 — Intellivision

Let’s check in with that console that really should have had a longer lifespan, the Intellivision.  The main things that caused an early demise for this system are of course the Video Game Crash of 1983 and those god-awful controllers.  Things were more powerful under the hood than many people realized, and later games released […]

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Video Carnage 05 — Odyssey²

The racing games for the Odyssey² were both pack-in games on the same cartridge.  I mentioned them before, and there really isn’t a whole lot to say about them.  The Odyssey² game library contains some surprisingly good and memorable games, but these to ain’t really among them. Speedway! (1978) The idea behind this game is […]

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Video Carnage 04 – Apple ][

Another 8-bit machine from the 1970s – the Apple II – had its share of driving games.  Prepare not to be blown away by amazing displays of graphics and sound. You know, if I could stretch the boundaries of what I consider to be a racing game by wide enough margins, I could call “The […]

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Video Carnage 03 – Atari 2600

Many game collectors and classic gaming enthusiasts start with the Atari.  And for the most part, this is where home console gaming really began.  But this system has some truly terrible games.  Thankfully for us, it also has some extremely fun games that were programmed by early masters of the art. Indy 500 (1977) This […]

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Video Carnage 02 – Channel F

Something else happened in 1972… the same year that the Odyssey had roused just about as much interest in this new “video game” phenomenon as it could have on its own.  Atari invented Pong. Well, Nolan Bushnell kind of stole it from the Odyssey’s game “Tennis”.  That’s okay because everybody else in the mid ’70s […]

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Video Carnage 01 – Odyssey

Set the Wayback Machine for 1968… It’s the Jet Age.  Steppenwolf, The Doors and The Beatles are blasting from your turntable.  Airplanes without propellers and radios without electrical cords are high-tech shit.  And these new transistors that the eggheads are talking about are replacing vacuum tubes everywhere!  Technology is all moving so fast, it’s downright […]

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Video Carnage!

If you are a fan of video games like I am, then you may have played a racing game or two.  I love playing racing and driving games, whether they are competitive in nature or just simulations. If you read any of my Golfyssey posts where I reviewed golf video games, then you might have […]

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