“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

“It has been 50 years since the nuclear disaster. The sport of sprint racing is now a ruthless battle between armed cars. These races take place on tracks built in the ruins of the dangerous nuclear zone known only as the BADLANDS. This is sprint racing gone BAD! It’s all-out war on the track as players blast away at the drones (and each other) to finish first! Players shoot playfield targets for extra points and bonus missiles!” -Badlands Manual

Badlands is a top down racing game set 50 years after a nuclear disaster. Sprint racing is now a ruthless battle set in a post apocalyptic wasteland. As the games manual eloquently puts it, “This is sprint racing gone BAD!” Three cars race on a single screen track, dodging obstacles like mines, retractable barricades, and oil slicks.

There are wrenches that you can pick up to purchase power ups in the shop at the end of each race. You can purchase better tires, turbo, a higher top speed, or missiles that you can use on the other cars. These missiles are the biggest addition to the series. Shooting another other car with a missile causes it to blow up forcing the other player to wait for a replacement car to get airlifted on to the track.

The tracks are interesting, especially for a game from the late 80′s. There are twists, jumps, and figure eights.

The key to success is in powering up your vehicle. Coming in first and collecting wrenches mean the difference between first and last place. It could be rough if your buddy managed to get completely souped up and you were stuck with the stock car from the beginning. He would be sliding around turns perfectly and lapping you as you chugged along running into walls and exploding over and over.

Why did I pick this game?

I was always a huge sucker for the Sprint series; Badlands is the spiritual successor to those titles. My cousins and I have wasted days of our lives playing Sprint games both at home and at the old nickel arcade that was down the block from their house.

However, I didn’t even realize this game existed until recently, and even then it was a case of me trying it because the start up screen art is amazing.

How does it hold up with time?

It takes a second to adjust the switches in my brain for top down racing. The mechanics are just something that modern video games no longer employ. But there is something to be said for the simple, timeless pleasure of blowing your friends up. You can play single player, but this is a game that was meant to be played with a couple of buddies. Blowing each other up or causing each other to miss a tight turn will probably never get old for me.

However, some of you have grown up in a post Gran Turismo and Burnout world, so top down racing will seem strange and foreign to you. You’ll probably turn left when you meant to turn right and end up getting blown up. But if you can persevere through the initial learning curve, you’ll find a very gem of a game.

This review is based on the edition of Badlands found in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the Xbox.

Tags: Arcade, Atari Games, Badlands, Friday Old Games, racing, Sprint, Teque

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.