Chequered Flag

Chequered Flag is among the very first racing simulators on the ZX Spectrum, and as early as 1983 it showed that even a modest eight-bit computer could offer a sense of speed on a Formula 1 circuit. The player sits behind the wheel of a single-seater and watches the track rendered using simple, but for its time surprisingly smooth, wireframe graphics simulating a view from the car's cockpit, while the horizon and the landscape around the track are only suggested, so the machine could keep up with recalculating the perspective in real time.

The controls emphasize correctly entering corners, working the throttle, and choosing the right gear, so the game relies more on patiently finding the racing line and mastering the car's physics within the limits of the era's capabilities than on arcade-style chasing. The dashboard instruments show speed and engine revs, and watching them is just as important as steering itself, because choosing the wrong gear can slow the car coming out of a corner, while revving too high risks damaging the engine. The audio accompaniment is minimalist – engine noise and a warning beep on mistakes replace any music, which only underlines the game's focus on the driving itself and on the technique of getting through the track, rather than on flashy audiovisual presentation.

At the time of release, Chequered Flag was praised mainly for its technical side and for how convincingly it managed to evoke a sense of three-dimensional movement around a circuit on limited hardware, at a time when such simulations were rare on eight-bit machines and most games settled for a two-dimensional top-down view. Today the game naturally feels slow and stiff, the controls clunky, and the pace far removed from a modern understanding of racing games, but as one of the first attempts at a credible simulation of racing on a home computer it remains an important historical milestone that influenced later generations of racing titles on the Spectrum and pointed the way the genre would head in subsequent years – toward an ever more convincing illusion of space and speed.

Why play: For anyone interested in the history of racing simulators, willing to forgive clunky controls and a slow pace in exchange for one of the first attempts at a credible 3D racing simulation on an eight-bit machine.