Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament (Megadrive/Genesis)

Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament (Megadrive/Genesis)

Producer:

Supersonic Software Ltd.

Publisher:

Codemasters Ltd.

Year:

1995 (Re-released in 1998 with extra levels and level creator software).

Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament for me is THE seminal party/racing game and is still just as much fun to play now as in 1995.

These days with online play being so prominent, and the ability to play games with multiple people from all around the world at the same time being commonplace, it is very easy to forget the ‘olden days’ when the idea of more than 2 players at the same time was a distant fantasy, and we had to actually go round each others houses to play multiplayer… Physical social interaction people…it’s the way forward… ;-)

Sure-we had Multi-taps, but the amount of games that supported them were few and far between-and then there was the actual cost of the peripheral itself, with was not much cheaper than some games at the time, and as a young teenager with hardly any expendable income due to the small sticking point of legally being unable to work on anything but a paper round, I knew which of the two things I would sooner buy.

But then this came along…

 …and it changed the way me and my school friends socialized forever (at least until we were all tall enough to sneak into the local pub…)

MM2:TT for anyone who doesn’t know is a top-down arcade style racing game in which  you are given control of a variety miniature cars, (including choppers, speedboats, racecars, tanks, jeeps, and formula 1 amongst others) while racing against either AI opponents or your friends on various locations such as kitchen desks, pool tables, workshops, school desks, gardens, bathtubs etc.

 There are around 20 different drivers and opponents to choose from-all of which are customisable to a point, ie: you can name each one anything you like-this does not sound like much now, but back in the day this was half the fun-naming each character after people you know/TV characters, etc. It was also fun to see your friends arguing over who got to play as the ‘Fonz’ lookalike, Spider, and who had to play as Dwayne the Hillbilly…

 The controls are simple – you just need to accelerate, turn and slow down. There are a few modes of playing. You can compete against computer opponents in single races or tournaments, or you can race your friends in head to head mode. The skill of the game came from learning how to drift round the corners, and how to avoid being bashed off the table by your evil friends, causing you to fall to your doom and have to catch up to the pack upon re-spawning.

 And multi-player is what this game is all about. The “J-Cart” shown above was a revelation back in the day-two extra controller ports built into the cartridge for no extra cost…this allowed 4 players racing with standard controls, or up to 8 players racing at the same time using only 4 controllers! (two people to each controller-the cars auto accelerated, one person steered left and right with the D-pad, pressing ‘down’ to break, and one person used the A+C buttons and B to break).

You cannot imagine the cluster f**k of having 8 teenagers in one bedroom, gathered round a 12 inch CRT portable TV, all trying to “cheat” by knocking each other off the course and hogging the controller you were supposed to be sharing with your peer…hilarity and good natured animosity would always ensue in equal measure…

They certainly don’t make ‘em like they used to… :-)