Micro Machines (1991)

Almost forgot about this game until I stumbled upon it while lurking through my Ever drive after finishing Streets of Rage 2. I think we rented this a couple times from blockbuster as a kid for Sega Genesis. I always remember really loving it.

The single player is pretty tough and I definitely had to use save states to beat some of the tracks in the championship mode (only at the start of the race though!). I got most of the way through head-to-head but there's a track that requires near perfect memorization that I gave up on.

These games are best played with friends. Later versions even came with multi taps built into the cart, and a mode that allows 2 players on a single controller, allowing for 8 players!

I gave micro machines 96 a shot after this and the single player is WAY harder, but it looks more fun overall.

History:
Thinking back, I'm actually surprised to realize that I had never played any top-down racing games growing up. Sure, I knew all about this game, and RC Pro Am, Rock'n'Roll Racing and others, but I can't say I've ever actually played one. That said, I definitely had a metric crapton of actual Micro Machines growing up!

Expectations:
This is also the first NES racer on my list. It looks like good fun, and the back of the box promises it to be, so, here's to hoping!

Night 1:

First thing's first: This game has the best characters of any game ever made... ever. Spider? Are you kidding me!? How freaking radical is that!?!? Anyway, second thing's second, this game rocks. The control is so tight, the game itself is so smooth and everything feels awesome. Different vehicles control, well, differently, and memorizing track layouts feels extremely rewarding.

At first courses were a bit frustrating, but as I learned how to control the chosen vehicle (toy?) better and slide into turns properly the game started to feel extremely satisfying.

Over the course of the day I managed to consistently get about halfway through the cars and courses before finally running out of lives. That's another I liked about the game, between the catch up mechanics and needing only to place 2nd to qualify, the game never felt unfair to me, unlike certain other 8-bit racing games...

Conclusion:
What a great game! I had a lot of fun with this one, as it handled much better than expected, and was genuinely fun to play.

Play it Again?
Yes! At some point I know I'm going to want to sit down and play this one all the way to the end, I'm just not that good at racing games in general. With a fun multiplayer mode, there's even more reason to pull it off the shelf!

Personal Score: