Tuesday 16 April 2013

Motor Raid (Arcade)

Before I start, I should mention something: the actual arcade version of this game comes in a full-sized motorbike cabinet that the player sits on while playing, tilting left and right to steer. I didn't play like that, though. I played Motor Raid via the excellent Model 2 Emulator, using an Xbox 360 controller.
With that out of the way, I'll get on to actually talking about the game. It's a lot like the Road Rash games, but in space and with luxurious and beautiful Model 2 3D graphics. You take part in motorbike races across various planets, and you have the option of attacking your opponents, punching them, kicking them, or clobbering them about the head with your weapon.
There's also a boost meter that gradually fills up as you race. Once it's more than half full, you can double-tap (or on the real arcade machine, I guess you would double twist?) the accelerator to use it. Obviously, the more you let it fill, the longer your boost will last. Less obviously, if you wait for the meter to fill completely before using it, you'll become enshrouded in an energy field and spin your weapon around your head.
There are four main planets upon which the races take place, though you'll only actually race on three of them in a regular game. Your performance in the races decides which planets you visit. I've read online that there's also a fifth planet which appears as an extra fourth race if you manage to place first in all three regular races. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough to make this happen, so I don't know what that extra stage is like.
There's a few characters to pick from, but since I'm not good enough at racing games to really tell the difference, I just pick the default character everytime, a young woman named Robin. After each race, Robin recites the cryptic quote "I won! But I still can't find what I'm looking for...". This is never explained.
In conclusion, Motor Raid is a really great game that you should definitely play, if you have a computer good enough for Model 2 emulation (pretty likely), or you live near a place that has an actual machine (not so likely). It's a shame it never got a home port, but I assume that's because the Saturn had no chance of replicating this game's graphics, and by the time the Dreamcast came along, Model 2 games were starting to be considered "old hat".

1 comment:

  1. I played this at a beachfront arcade years ago. It wasn't much fun because the buttons were torn out, so I couldn't attack anyone. The same arcade also had a Virtual On that had suffered similar abuse.

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