We go way back to 1989 for this weeks RetroTech100 Arcade 20p Challenge, back to a time when arcade machines were 10p per credit, and we are challenged by the crew at Retrotech100 to relive those halcyon days and place 20p in the virtual coin slot and see how we do against our fellow retro nerds. 1989 saw the top down racing game, Badlands stealing our 10 pence pieces, let’s see how it does it.
As stated, we take a view looking down on the racing action from directly above in Badlands. Our car is pitted against two others and we race to be first across the finish line. Let me just say that although I am old, and an old school gamer, I am not a huge fan of these kind of racers, and Badlands did little to change my mind. There is the fact that all of these racers make the cars handle very badly, over very short twisty courses, then hide parts of the track under bridges so you can’t see where you are going. So you are out of control, and hidden from view which is nice.
Badlands in itself isn’t the worst example of the top down racer though, in fact it is quite a good one, with a fairly gentle level up of your opponents and some weapons and car upgrades to be had between races. BUT it is an arcade game and needs to take money so when it does ramp up the difficulty it really adds it in and the slightest mistake sees the opponent cars running away from you very quickly after the first couple of races. In the arcade the challenge would be on and you would be pushing in coins to do better each time (you can improve with practise and track learning).
For the 20p challenge you can practise all you want, but once the filming starts you have only two credits so every mistake costs, and I am good at mistakes in Badlands as you will see below.
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