Road Rash 3

Full throttle, the roar of the engine, and a club in your hand ready to whack the rider beside you. Road Rash 3 brought its famous blend of racing and brawling on motorcycles to its peak on the SEGA Mega Drive. In 1995, Electronic Arts closed out its trilogy on the sixteen-bit console in grand style.

The foundation stayed true to the series: you race on a motorcycle down roads full of traffic and rivals, except that instead of fair play, fists and weapons are swung. Snatching an opponent's club, knocking him into the guardrail or a passing car — it is all a legitimate path to victory. The adrenaline springs as much from the race as from the fistfight at full speed.

The third installment added notable innovations. The action moves to various countries of the world, and each location has its own visual character and conditions. Above all, though, an elaborate bike-upgrade system was added: with the money you earn, you buy better machines and components, bringing a layer of building and progression to the arcade races that the earlier installments lacked.

Road Rash was known for its attitude and atmosphere. The series defined its own rough style even before later versions on CD consoles added grunge and a rock soundtrack with real bands. On the Mega Drive, the third installment bets on pure, sharp action and a sense of danger at every meter of the track.

The sense of speed and the brutal contact with other riders made every race a nail-biting ride. Crashing meant losing precious seconds and watching your rivals vanish into the distance, so every brawl was both a risk and an opportunity at once. Balancing aggression and caution is at the core of all the fun.

As the culmination of the trilogy on the Mega Drive, Road Rash 3 is everything the series wanted to be: fast, dirty, and uncompromising. For fans of rough arcade racing, it remains one of the best the console offered in the motorcycle genre.

Why play it: For a unique mix of fast races and brawls on motorcycles, enhanced with world travel and the building of your own machine.