{"id":44867,"date":"2024-03-04T18:00:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/forgotten-gems-top-racer-back-in-top-gear\/"},"modified":"2024-03-04T18:00:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:00:23","slug":"forgotten-gems-top-racer-back-in-top-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/forgotten-gems-top-racer-back-in-top-gear\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Gems: Top Racer Back In Top Gear"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you\u2019ve read the last 10 issues of my Forgotten Gems<\/u><\/a> column, you\u2019ve probably noticed a pattern. I pick a game that may either spark some recognition and you\u2019ll go \u201coh, yeah \u2013 what happened to it?\u201d \u2013 or you\u2019ve never heard of the game I\u2019m profiling and you google what year I was born so that you can rest easy that it\u2019s not you, it\u2019s me. Inevitably, the column turns gloomy. An awesome-sounding sequel was planned<\/a>, but never made. Or, somehow, an entire series of games is no longer accessible to play<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Not today, friends! Today\u2019s Forgotten Gems has a happy ending. As of March 7, 2024, three classic SNES racers are back on the track, broadly available to play on Xbox One, Series X\/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Courtesy of Brazilian studio QUByte and retro experts Piko, of Evercade fame, the Top Racer Collection includes the original trio of Top Racer games \u2013 Top Racer, Top Racer 2, Top Racer 3000, and an original title featuring four new rides that recall other classic racing games, called Top Racer: Crossroads.<\/p>\n

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But I’ve Never Heard of Top Racer<\/strong><\/h1>\n

If you\u2019re an old-school SNES fan and you\u2019re scratching your head right now because you\u2019ve never heard the name Top Racer before, once again, it\u2019s not you. In 1992, Japanese publisher Kemco — sometimes referred to by its less sexy corporate name, Kotobuki System — launched a game with two names: Top Racer, in Japan, and Top Gear in the US and Europe. <\/p>\n

Developed by Gremlin Graphics, the team behind the Lotus Turbo Challenge racing games, Top Gear became a surprise hit, selling more than a quarter million units in the west alone (as disclosed by court documents that I\u2019ll get to in a minute). Top Gear predates Nintendo\u2019s own Mario Kart by a few months, but like the SNES mega-hit, it hooked players with impressive Mode 7 graphics and a focus on split-screen multiplayer. <\/p>\n

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Whether you\u2019re playing alone, with (this is the way), or against a friend, Top Gear \u2013 er, Top Racer, let\u2019s just stick with that \u2013 displays a horizontally split screen by default. The idea is that you\u2019ll always be able to keep an eye on your biggest rival, but the default setup was no doubt also a way to simplify the overall design and keep technical ambitions in check. Unlike the admittedly smoother-running Mario Kart and F-Zero, Top Racer actually simulates verticality and adds quite a bit of excitement by obscuring the path ahead when you drive up and down hills.<\/p>\n

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Most of Top Racer is a test of your reflexes. Scan ahead or look at the track mini-map and start turning early or easing up on the gas pedal, all by using the SNES controller\u2019s exclusively digital controls, of course. But the designers added a few more strategic elements that ensured players would remember Top Racer for many years to come. For one, your car can actually run out of gas if you don\u2019t refuel during longer races \u2013 an unusual addition to an arcade racer. But there are two more things that tipped Top Racer into \u201cgem\u201d territory. The first is its nitro system. You get three nitros you can use at any time, to be used strategically to catch up with a slightly faster opponent or to recover after a crash. It\u2019s a commonplace and unremarkable feature today, many Burnouts, Midnight Clubs, and Need for Speeds later, but it added a wonderful new element of strategy, especially in the fierce two-player races against my friends. But Top Racer\u2019s most memorable element, by far, is its music.<\/p>\n

Top Racer\u2019s most memorable element is the music.<\/section>\n

When you first start Top Racer and hear the title track, you\u2019ll instantly get it. Composer Barry Leitch might have recycled some of his own tunes from the Lotus Turbo Challenge games, but it\u2019s impossible to forget his heavenly synth arpeggios and glide bass lines even after spending just a few minutes on the track. <\/p>\n

“It really was a case of do whatever we can to do get music into the game ASAP. The clock was ticking, and the job needed doing. That\u2019s how the pieces from Lotus 1 & 2 ended up in there. There simply wasn’t enough time to write new music, simply take what we had already and jazz it up a bit”, said Leitch, in a 2015 interview with Game Developer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Despite the time pressure placed on the composer, the end result is unforgettable. Hit play on the video embedded above, and you’ll understand. I used to just let the game idle on the title screen to put an extra spring in my step for the day. Top Racer has such an iconic sound that Aquiris, another Brazilian studio, enlisted Leitch to score its own homage to the series, 2015’s mobile gem, Horizon Chase, as well as its two sequels. A far cry from most racing game soundtracks today, there\u2019s just something intangible, something soothing about Leitch\u2019s tunes that makes racing more enjoyable.<\/p>\n