This week, we’re taking a look at Road Rash, the arcade bike combat/racing series developed by Electronic Arts back in the 1990s. Even today, the title is the epitome of vehicular combat.
This is a bi-weekly feature in which we revisit games that influenced the future of gaming and established their position as a classic, so that we still reminisce them years after their original release. Head over to Neowin’s Gamers’ Hangout to share your own memories of classic games and you might get featured next time!
Three weeks ago, we reminisced Rocksteady Studios’ Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was published on consoles and PCs starting back in 2009 by Warner Bros. This week, we’re revisiting a comparatively less serious series, namely Road Rash.
Developed and published by Electronic Arts, Road Rash began its journey on the Sega Genesis, way back in 1991. It later made its way to other platforms including Amiga, Nintendo’s Game Boy, Sega CD, and the PC. As the name implied, Road Rash wasn’t a simulation of racing on bikes, it was more of an arcade-like title where you raced against the computer or human players.
What made the game fun was its emphasis on vehicular combat. Players could utilize their racer’s aggressive abilities such as kicking and punching other racers off their bikes and could even employ the use of weapons such as chains, nunchucks, and lead pipes. Of course, against competitive players, you could also be the one knocked off your bike, causing your character to tumble across the ground for tens of feet, if you were going at high speeds before being swept from your vehicle.
The gameplay was further diversified by the fact that you had to rush back to your fallen bike, and you could manually do that. This allowed you to use your combat abilities against unsuspecting racers while on-foot, making for some truly hilarious and memorable gameplay moments.
The sheer fun of playing Road Rash — which also had an accompanied story mode that no one paid attention to — cemented the title as a timeless classic, paving the way for sequels all the way up to 2000, with subsequent titles being released across a range of platforms, including the PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, and the Gameboy Advance.
The scope of Road Rash ‘s popularity can be understood by the fact that a title based on the original series, was only recently released on Steam. Dubbed Road Redemption and boasting a respectable rating of 9/10, the game is currently retailing for $17.99 (10% off during the Halloween Sale) on the platform. Most of the reviews claim that it manages to capture some of the magic of Road Rash, and attempts to go beyond that by offering better graphics a variety of weapons, so if you’re aching to relive your ’90s notalgia, be sure to check it out!
Have you played Road Rash? Did you enjoy the combat and arcade-y feel of the game? If EA released an official sequel to the series, would you be willing to give it a try? Let us know in the comments section below!
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