Road Avenger

Road Avenger is the console version of an arcade laserdisc game, and it's one of the finest examples of what used to be called an interactive movie. The story is simple and fast-moving: the hero's wife is killed by a gang during their wedding drive, and he then sets out in his car to hunt them down for revenge. The whole game consists of anime sequences played from the disc, into which the player intervenes at precisely timed moments — essentially a forerunner of today's quick time events. This exact type of game was the main draw of the whole add-on at launch, and Road Avenger was among the best-executed examples of it.

The gameplay lives and dies by reflexes and memory. A short prompt appears on screen telling you which way to yank the wheel, when to brake, or when to attack, and the player has a split second to react. A mistake means a crash and an immediate replay of the scene. Since the sequences are fixed, progress essentially means learning their order and starting to react before the prompt even appears. The game is short and unforgiving, but thanks to quick restarts it never feels frustrating and keeps luring you into another attempt. More complex situations gradually pile on, requiring several prompts to be handled in quick succession, and the final scenes demand a practically flawless run.

The title's strength lies in its execution. The animation is fluid, the camera dynamic, and the chases have a momentum that had no equal on a home console at the time of release; on top of that comes a rock soundtrack from the disc and dubbed scenes. At the time, it was a flagship effort to sell the Mega-CD as a device for cinematic experiences, and the game is often cited as one of the few representatives of that direction that is actually fun. Today it needs to be taken for what it is — a short interactive chase — but within its category it remains one of the best-executed pieces ever made. As proof of the era's excitement over new technology, it works brilliantly.