This is one of the best games ever on the Mega Drive.
My fondness for this whilst high as a kite and listening to slayer is only eclipsed by my love of fried bread!
The last couple of months have seen the release of MotoGP and F1 2015. Just round the corner is the new Xbox exclusive Forza 6, so there are plenty of driving games around if you feel the need for speed. Micro Machines Beat the machine or challenge a mate My driving skills were honed in simpler times on the Codemasters …
fantastic memories on the megadrive of one player at the top of the screen with 2 cm of screen ahead trying to anticipate the turns and obstacles without being able to see them, and the opponent on the edge at the bottom with all the screen ahead but knowing one slip up and he's out.
good times.
Agree, hours of fun and frustration was had...I remember arguing with my older brother about who got to be Spyder. He made me be Dwane..Older brothers are cruel at times...Still I beat him at it...
The Mega Drive was an amazing system...or most likely I'm now old...and just remembering it fondly with rose tinted glasses. :o)
Turbo Tournament was my go to drug, with the extra two ports built into the cart in case you didn't have a 4 way play adapter. Utter carnage in front of the TV.
My favourite tracks were the initial desk with the power drills blocking the track occasionally, and the awesome dragsters three laps around a toilet seat.
Plus you forgot to mention the best part of Head to Head racing ... the carefully timed nudge of the opposition to send them flying into a wall and rebounding backwards off the screen!
Funny, I fired this up in an Amiga emulator just a month ago to amuse my 4 year old daughter. She couldn't get her head around the control scheme though, being much more used to the likes of Mario Kart. Though familiar with the control scheme myself, I couldn't believe how hard I was finding it. I swear I was better at it back in the day. Too true about those goddamn rulers!
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I think it is the simple formula that makes MM so enjoyable, and I don't think any update (whether it has the Micro Machines licence or not) should tinker with it. Too many games have tried to add a back story and in the process messed up the simplicity that made the game so enjoyable.. Thinking particularly of Battleships here, although the story wasn't added for a game, more so they could get a movie out of it.
Don't get me wrong: I like a game with a good story, but I also like a game where you can just go in and do something, like race. I also like games where, if you are in the mood, you can totally ignore the story and just go in and blow shit up. GTA and Saints Row are particularly good for this. Micro Machines had no real story, it was was just about having fun.
I would like to see it with updated graphics though. I might check out that other top down racer mentioned in the article..
There was a game called Re-Volt released some time around 1999 that might scratch the itch. It's basically Micro Machines crossed with Stunt Car Racer; the "plot" is that the remote controlled cars in a department store come alive at night and drive around the store. The physics model is interesting in that the cars have been modelled to have very little weight, so the feeling is of driving an RC car. Comes with a track designer, too.
Logged to comment that it reminded me of Re-Volt. Great little game, sadly I never managed to make it run in post-Win XP machines.
The tracks were really funny and inventive, they not only raced around the store but in a suburban neighborhood, inside a supermarket, in the science museum... and on the decks of luxury cruiser Toy-tanic. Sod that damn track! I never managed to beat it.
The only reason I am not still playing this is because my son nicked the console when his mum and I split up - and of course the CSA left me penniless, so I could never afford to replace it!!
Thats my tan coloured jacket, bought in the late 80's THAT I STILL OWN!!!
I owned this on several consoles and, along with various incarnations of Bomberman, it was the reason for purchasing a multitap for each of those platforms.
It was always great fun to come back from the pub with mates and play a few games of MM and BM.
I even have this on the PSP, which I suspect may have been the last version rather than PS2, but it simply wasn't the same without the multiplayer element (I'm sure it had this, but I knew no-one else with a PSP).
I was but a wee teen when I got this game on the PC. But I vividly remember the 2 player mode of this being played with me and a mate. And then on the schooldesk course, slamming him into the ruler. And on the off chance he didn't fall off I would stop and say "it's ok, I'll let you catch up" only to zoom away at the last second.
I think the closest I ever got to that same feeling was playing Mashed on the Xbox. But again, it was similar to Micro machines in that if you didn't know the course and what turns were coming up when, you were stuffed.
Ahhh memories of my amiga 1200 playing against friends on this. That and the original worms (with the extra voices for the 1200 natch.)...
Really should buy one off ebay but then how much the cost of nostalgia? And how gutted when I find out I'm shit at all the games? (That and finding a python joystick would be next to impossible)
I was working at Codemasters during this era; takes me right back. Andrew Graham (softly spoken scottish guy, now at Kwalee ) was the main man behind the Micro Machines games; he did the NES (and later PSX) version; my mate Charlie Skilbeck did it on the Megadrive; I built the dev systems and did some other stuff.. lots of fun. Actually myself and Nick Pavis worked for a while on a Sega Saturn version but that thing never went anywhere...
...Oh and we went to quite a lot of raves as well. Ah the 90's :-)
Not sure if I'm remembering this correctly (perhaps it was Micro Machines 2), but I think the simplicity of this game allowed two players to share a controller, allowing 4 player races with only 2 controllers.
To simplify the gameplay in this mode, the cars would autoaccelerate, leaving the players to simply turn left, right or brake. One player would use the D-pad and the other would use the three buttons of the Mega Drive controller.
It sounds stupid describing it now, but I fondly remember it as one of the most fun experiences of my childhood, simply because everything is better when there are 4 people playing a game constantly, on the same sofa, without rotation.