Super Monaco GP
System: SMS
Release Date: September 1990
Developer: Arc System Works
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Racing
Blast off from the line to out race all of your opponents in Super Monaco GP! Do you have the endurance to sit through 16 formula one races in one sitting? If so, this might be the game for you!
Hop around the world to different courses. Only the top six of fourteen get any points toward the championship, so you need to make sure you’re on your game. Before each race, you can assemble your vehicle. Choose from an automatic transmission, 3, 5, or 7 speed, with acceleration increasing with the number of gears. The wing has four different options starting with the highest traction and weight and moving to the lightest and least traction. The engines start with the lowest speed and highest acceleration and move to the inverse. Tires go from softest with maximum traction to hardest with minimum grip.
Races are three laps around whatever track you’re at. You’re on the top screen and your rival is shown on the bottom. You can be on the same screen as one another and occasionally run into other racers on the track. Physically running into them will slow you down. Other than that, you need to make your turns at the correct speed. Playing on automatic gives you little control on the speed you’re taking corners, so be prepared to brake.
I didn’t have the endurance to make it further than the fifth race. That in itself took about 45 minutes and the prospect of having to play for another 2 hours turned me right off.
Graphics: 1.0
The background moves as you turn, that’s the only nice thing I have to say.
Sound: 1.0
Pretty awful. Everything sounds bad and the engine noises are particularly grating.
Gameplay: 0.5
The controls are quite awful. I can’t even come up with something good to say about them.
Difficulty: 1.0
Overtaking the bottom screen AI is near impossible, unless they are driving a stick and keep farting around with shifting like an idiot.
Fun Factor: 0.5
This isn’t a fun racing game as there is nothing entertaining about it.
Overall Rating: 0.8
Super Monaco GP earns a D. This is a pretty poor racing game. There hasn’t been a great one on the Master System, but this scrapes the bottom of the barrel and should be avoided.