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NES box art for Roadblasters, the cover of NEStalgia episode 265

265 · Roadblasters

▶ Game info
VerdictSkip it
GenreRacing
ReleasedJanuary 1990
SeasonSeason 6
DeveloperBeam Software
PublisherMindscape
March 24, 2023 · 29 min · transcript available

RoadBlasters is a futuristic racing action game. The goal is to reach the finish line in one piece throughout each of 50 levels. Numerous enemies are out on the road to try and stop you, including armored cars, motorcycles, cannons on the side of the road, landmines, and more.

Our verdict: Skip it

Beam Software made this for Mindscape in 1990, a port of the arcade racer where you drive an armed car through 50 rally races, blowing up enemy cars before the fuel runs out. All three of us played it. We called it a fine game, and not an essential one.

What works

  • The fuel and score loop. Fuel ticks down like a timer from the moment a race starts, and you refill it from pickups and from cars you blow up. Your points in one race decide your reserve fuel in the next. Hits push the score multiplier toward 10 and misses push it down, so once you hit 10 you only take shots you know you can make. We usually don't care about score, and here it gives you something to manage.
  • The handling. It is the most accessible pseudo 3D turning we've had so far, nothing like Mach Rider, and the car almost looks like it drifts. It is easy enough that driving feels secondary to the shooting.
  • Cruise missiles. A plane drops power-ups on the track, and it looks enough like a bad guy that we avoided it at first. The missile is a huge explosion, like a Patriot strike from off screen.

What doesn't

  • Fifty races, few ideas. You get a new background every five or ten races and more of the same enemies. By stage 10 or 15 you have seen most of them. We wanted a flying car, or an open world with the city in the background.
  • Harmless traffic. The cars never shoot back, unlike in Knight Rider. The kids on bikes look like bicyclists sharing the road, yet you get points for killing them. Blue and purple cars can't be destroyed without a special weapon, so you dodge. It plays like a racing shmup about what you dodge versus what you kill.
  • The turrets. They fire three evenly spaced shots that are hard to avoid, though they don't aim and sometimes didn't fire.

Worth knowing

RoadBlasters is the game put across the arcade from Turbo's in Wreck-It Ralph. Turbo crashes into its car and the operator shuts both games down. The arcade version also offered a free shirt for sending in the secret code from finishing race 50, but that promotion is over.

The bottom line

Skip it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. Fine games just don't get you anywhere anymore, especially when earlier NES games do the same thing. Sean compared it to being a totally fine podcaster: fine, but not interesting to listen to. Joe called it functional and mindless, something to play when you just want something to do, but it doesn't hold his interest for long.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

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