Saturday, August 26, 2017

Street Rod 1 (PC) Review


Street Rod 1 is a car racing video game that was published by California Dreams in 1989 for the Commodore 64 and Amiga, as well as MS-DOS PCs. This game takes place in California in 1963 with your main objective to challenge and defeat the "King."



You start the game with 750 dollars to spend on a car. Inside the newspaper, you'll find that all you can get at that price is a very cheap car with a V6 and an automatic transmission. Besides Ford, Chevy, and Dodge you can also buy some Olds, Mercurys, and Pontiacs.


After your first car purchase, you won't have much money to buy anything to modify your car. I usually buy a racing transmission because you have enough money to afford it but also it is way faster than the slushbox auto it comes with. As you win some races you'll earn some cash to continue upgrading your car to maybe a V8 or you could buy a new car, one that is cooler looking like a Corvette.


The game consists of you racing opponents in two types of races, drag, and street. Drag races are side by side racing on a straight piece of street. For the street races you start off at the same spot as the drag race but once you pass the end of the drag section the road begins to throw turns into the mix. When you challenge people to a drag race you can race for free or bet 10 or 50 dollars. The street races are a little more hardcore where you can bet 25 or 100 dollars. The last bet is for pinks which means if you win the race you get your opponent's car and if you lose he gets your wheels.

Winning!
After a few races, you'll need to do some work on your ride. First off you'll need to keep your car full of gas.


Next, you need to keep an eye on your parts. With each race your engine, trans, and wheels that wear out so you'll need to buy new parts to keep winning races.


Lastly, you need to keep an eye on your engine. As you race it will go out of tune which will rob the engine of power. You'll need to realign your tuning which is really easy to do.


OK, you've got your car all supped up and tuned to race but it isn't that easy. When your new and your car is slow the other racers will be all over you to try and take your money away. The problem is once your car is fast very few are willing to race you especially you want to race for pinks.


Now let's get to the racing itself. The drag race is really easy, you'll just need shift quickly and to not let your opponent bash you off the road. The street race is harder and requires you to have the right equipment. There are three types of tires that you can buy and if you try to take turns at speed on the junk tires you'll slide off the road. This can also happen once your car is super fast. If you don't make the turn you'll wreck your car.

I tried to jump the train.
The last obstacle you'll need to keep an eye out for is the police. I believe it's completely random when they show up but you are forced to pull over for your ticket.


Finally, you'll get to the end of the game, your mission is to race and defeat the "King". He refuses to race you until you've won enough drag and street races.

Here I am losing to the "King."
If you can defeat the "King" you'll win his Corvette, his girlfriend??? and the game. I wonder if she's OK with the boyfriend switch?

Overall this is a great game that I've had a lot of fun playing over the years. Everyone I know that's played it quickly loved it and to this day we'll still talk about the game but mostly it something like, "I wish this transmission would come out with only two bolts."

The graphics look great in VGA and years earlier I liked the music but not so much now but you can turn the radio off. Newer gamers that never played these kinds of games as kids may not like this one but I say to just give it a try so I give this game a 7 out of 10.

Before I end this I what to say that if you want to try the game you can head over to this website Street Rod Online. The guy running this site has purchased the rights to the game and have Street Rod 1 and 2 online to download for free. He has also put up, for free, a new version called Street Rod SE which has a bunch of extra cars and a few other things. If you have any interest in this game head over and download it, what do you have to lose?? It's free.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...