Victory Run
System: TG-16
Release Date: August 29, 1989
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: NEC
Genre: Racing
The Paris to Dakar rally is done here in Victory Run. It’s always good to have a racing game available for players to sink their teeth into. This is very similar to OutRun, but with some parts management to keep in mind. There are eight legs to the race (of which I was only good enough to see three). It plays just the same as OutRun. You press Button I to accelerate and Button II to brake. Gears are shifted with up and down. And steering is operated with left and right.
The TurboGrafx-16 doesn’t support smooth sprite scaling, so everything is quite choppy. Turns are ever annoying. Gears one and two were basically worthless as far as I can tell. When I hit the hard turns, I would try to shift down to third, but that didn’t seem to help me very much. The gimmick in Victory Run is that your parts degrade with use. And at the end of the leg, you can repair them.
If your tires wear out, you slide all over the track. If your engine degrades, you lose your ability to reach full speed. When the gear shift begins to wear out, you lose your higher gears. My guess is that the suspension causes you to lose speed when you hit the bumps in the road. And the brakes breaking down likely make your brakes not work so well.
You have a certain amount of time on each leg of your race that you need to complete by. There is also a backup amount of time that will be added to or subtracted from, based on how well you do. When that back up time runs out, it’s game over.
Graphics: 1.5
The graphics don’t look much better than racing games from systems past. Scaling isn’t smooth and everything feels jerky.
Sound: 1.5
The music was low key and alright. The sound effects were annoying, just as many racing sound effects are in reality.
Gameplay: 1.5
I appreciate trying to add some simulation aspects, but the racing really isn’t that great.
Difficulty: 2.5
I found getting through the stages to be quite difficult. I expect you need to memorize the course layout to make a strong run. I don’t have that kind of time.
Fun Factor: 1.5
I had an alright time with this, but kind of expected some leaps in technology.
Overall Grade: 1.7
Victory Run earns a C-. It’s a racing game, but it isn’t that great. I’m hoping for better examples from the genre soon.