The peak of a metal structure, wheels dangling in the air, the engine roaring and you praying that the track beneath you does not vanish. Stunt Car Racer from 1989 is perhaps the most intense racing experience the home computers of the eighties had to offer.
The brilliant idea is that you do not race on a smooth road, but on elevated roller-coaster-like tracks built from steel girders, full of jumps, drops and huge bumps. The game runs on a full 3D engine with filled polygons, which was exceptional for its time, and thus gives rise to an intoxicating sense of speed and the weight of the car. When you fly into the air, you really fly, and hard landings damage the chassis of your car, which can even break apart.
Behind the game stands the legendary British programmer Geoff Crammond, a master of simulations who later became famous for the Formula One Grand Prix series. In Stunt Car Racer he demonstrated how convincingly he could simulate the physics of suspension, mass and inertia even on limited hardware. You compete one on one against an opponent, advance through divisions, and every mistake is punished by the loss of your damaged car and your position in the standings.
The game earned cult status, and to this day many players and critics rank it among the best racing titles of its generation. Its tension springs from the fragile balance between speed and survival, because full throttle in the wrong place means flying off the track and the end of the race. It is precisely this threat that makes every lap an adrenaline-fuelled test of nerves.
Stunt Car Racer was ahead of its time in how intensely it managed to pull you into the cockpit. It was not just a race against the clock, but a battle for the bare survival of your car's structure. Even today, when 3D graphics no longer dazzle us, that feeling of rattling along a steel track can still quicken the pulse.
Why play: A pioneering 3D racing experience from Geoff Crammond, where the tension springs from the struggle with gravity on elevated tracks. Adrenaline that has not aged.
Game 4 of 72 for Atari ST
The same title elsewhere (3)
Stunt Car Racer came out on Commodore Amiga and Atari ST at essentially the same time, and the difference is felt mainly in smoothness: thanks to its blitter, the Amiga fills the track's triangles faster, so soaring through the air and slamming down onto the girder track feels more fluid, while the Atari ST version tends to run choppier and slower because its weaker graphics subsystem manages fewer frames per second. Music and crash sounds are similar on both machines, but because of that smoothness the Amiga version is generally seen as the one today's players will enjoy most if they want the ramp-racing thrill at its best.
