Continental Circus

Continental Circus was released by Taito in 1987 as a motorcycle variation on their successful racing arcade machines, inspired by the road racing world championship series. The player races across tracks based on European grands prix on a motorcycle, leaning into corners, and must also watch the fuel gauge, because running out of gas can end the ride just as quickly as a collision with a rival or a crash off the track.

The game offered simultaneous two-player racing on linked cabinets as well as a choice between automatic and manual gear shifting, which was unusual for motorcycle arcade racers at the time and added depth for players who wanted to squeeze the maximum out of the engine. The graphics, with a smoothly rotating track, rival riders, and changing weather, were among the most impressive Taito offered on its machines in the second half of the eighties, and players still cite it today as one of the more good-looking motorcycle titles of its era.

Although Continental Circus never achieved the fame of competing car racing series, it earned a reputation among motorcycle racing fans as an honest and demanding ride that called for precision and resource management more than raw speed and reckless overtaking of rivals on the track, making it a more demanding and technically interesting counterpart to the then more popular car racing machines it tried to build on with its motorcycle theme and elaborate fuel management.

Why play it: Continental Circus offers one of the few honest arcade motorcycle simulations of the eighties, with an emphasis on fuel management and gear shifting.