NES box art for Rad Racer II, the cover of NEStalgia episode 328

328 · Rad Racer II

▶ Game info

VerdictSkip it

GenreRacing

ReleasedJune 1990

SeasonSeason 6

DeveloperSquare

PublisherSquare

June 7, 2024 · 34 min · transcript available

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Rad Racer II is an arcade style racing game which is the sequel to Rad Racer and features similar gameplay. Played with a 3D perspective from behind your vehicle, the goal is to race through a series of different tracks before time runs out. Support NEStalgia directly by becoming a member of our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/Nestalgia Members at the $5 and above level get access to our brand new show NEStalgia Bytes. A look at the famicom games you can play without any Japanese knowledge! For More NEStalgia, visit www.NEStalgiacast.com

Our verdict: Skip it

Mike, Sean and Joe drove this one. Rad Racer II is the sequel to Square's pseudo-3D racer, which sold half a million copies and was our episode 77. It is the only sequel: there is no Rad Racer III, and Square's next racing game was Chocobo Racing, nine years later. The follow-up is smoother and prettier than the original, and it strips out almost everything else.

What works

The car feels good. The physics and traction feel right, the road scrolls without jitter, and few NES games give this much sense of speed and weight. An indicator at the bottom right tells you whether a 90 or 45 degree turn is next, and which way, so you can set up early.
A race against checkpoints. There are no laps against rivals. You must reach each checkpoint before time runs out, and our best moments were rolling to a near stop and just making the next one. It's nerve wracking and satisfying.
It looks great. Sunset skies, night cities, a New York section, and a snow level that looks cleaner than most. Reviews complain about the missing 3D glasses, but we suspect dropping the gimmick freed up room for better graphics.
The turbo boost ignition. Hold Down, fill the gauge, press A, and you launch past 250 miles per hour. The manual tells you the trick, so you don't have to read about it in a magazine years later. Holding Up also boosts on the move, which we only worked out later, so we had a foot on two pedals.
Music select. Before each course you pick a track, or the option that tells you to sing to yourself. That made us laugh.

What doesn't

Subtraction. The first game offered a Ferrari and an F1 car. This one gives you only the Ferrari, and the 3D glasses are gone.
One mode. No two-player, no computer rivals, no missions, just the courses against the clock. Joe calls it a polished mini game and Sean a cool tech demo.
Other cars aren't racers. They are obstacles that vanish once you pass them. By the third or fourth course the traffic is solved, and only the windier turns, up to the American Alps, keep things interesting. The sharp turns also look like ordinary turns that fling you sideways faster.

The bottom line

Skip it. All three of us voted no on the Essential Games List. Mike felt it offers nothing very different from the first game, and the lost 3D glasses sealed it. Joe liked how it felt at first but said that's mostly because it's rare on the NES, and the genre doesn't hook him. Sean's vote was given away by "cool tech demo": fun for 15 or 20 minutes at a time, but not enough content.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

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Rad Racer 2, Speed, Thrills, and Glory.

And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And we're going to do this episode incredibly fast because this is a game where you drive an incredibly fast car. I don't know how long we'll be able to keep it up, but I'm going to try and talk pretty fast. What about you guys? I'm going to stick at my normal speed. I was going to say, you're going to be able to keep it up for as long as until you ask me to speak and then I won't be able to keep it up.

Okay, sounds good. We'll go back to our normal voices. Actually, I think I'm usually a little more excited than this, right guys? I don't know. I talk like this in real life, if you ever had that question of what I sound like. I talk like this.

Never raising above or below that cadence. Right, right. But we're here today to talk about Rad Racer 2, the second one. I actually didn't even expect this. I know I have a chart that tells me all of the games that are coming up and you can see it on NostalgiaCast.com. That's the subtitle, right? The second one? The second one, yeah. Actually, every movie that's a sequel has that. It's not a subtitle, it's just a legal disclosure that they have to put somewhere. Does that make this the second Rad Racer 2? No, no, no. Oh, okay.

Yeah, that would be Rad Racer. Oh, yeah. How would you do that, though? If you wanted to do a sequel to Rad Racer 2 and not call it Rad Racer 3 because 3 is a prequel to 1 or something, right? What would you do? You could just do the Final Fantasy X-2 thing and just call it Final Fantasy 2-2. Except Rad Racer, not Final Fantasy. That's funny. Okay, I like that. I like Rad Racer 2-2. However, we're just talking about the first iteration, the only iteration, the only sequel to Rad Racer.

And Rad Racer, a video game that sold half a million copies. So you better believe it was going to get a sequel because back then a half a million copies of something was impressive. We forget just how much smaller the video game market was back in 1990. But now half a million is still like good for the indie scene, but would almost crush any AAA developer. Yeah, I mean, this was... I kind of forgot all about Rad Racer, even though if it's anything like this, I must have really liked it. And I know that I have an entire podcast that I can go and listen to to refresh myself on that opinion that I may have had.

But this seems like some real AAA stuff, as you alluded to. Yeah, and I think it keeps the integrity of the pure reaction intact if you don't go back and listen to your old thing. Which I'm saying, of course, because I also didn't. So I want to just make sure that there was a reason I didn't and that was it. And the Rad Racer series, because we can call it a series now, do you guys know who the developer is? Square. It's Square. One of those. Well, it's like only a few months down the line, right? Right, but I'm just saying, isn't that weird? Like, they've got Final Fantasy 1, 2, and 3 over there already by 1990? Yeah, they must be some real shovelware to be able to release them that fast.

Well, yeah, because the original came out, what, 88 over there? Uh, 87, I think. 87. So, like, I know that, like, supposedly that whole, like, Final Fantasy name reason was, like, that square was going under. I know that that's, like, supposedly a myth. But isn't there truth to the fact that Square was, like, going under before Final Fantasy?

There's truth to the fact that sales weren't too hot on their games. And that, um, for, uh, Sakaguchi, it was definitely, like, his last hurrah in the sense of he was, um, uh, he was the director on a lot of these games and then made this project, Final Fantasy, as, like, his swan song that, like, if things don't go well, I'm out of the business. I don't know if he can legally speak for the company of, like, we will go under if, uh, if this isn't a success.

But he, uh, definitely took that stance. Okay, because all that to say that, like, that's why it was surprising to me that a game, Rad Racer, that came out before Final Fantasy, before the time when they were supposedly in such bad shape, did so well that they made a sequel of it. Like, I, I didn't, I thought that they wouldn't have been, like, looking back to before those times.

Well, Rad Racer had cool tech behind it because, yeah, most of the driving games we play these days seem to have this pseudo 3D thing going for them. But Rad Racer was the first example that we saw. And, um, I mean, I guess Mach Rider, but that's a motorcycle. But, like, you know, uh, I think Rad Racer even pulled it off with, with higher fidelity and, uh, it felt better to be driving those cars. Uh, emphasis on cars. We'll get to that in a second. But Rad Racer 2 is, uh, is even better in the sense of the graphic department, I think, at least. I think they were able to fill in a lot more.

And it's kind of funny because when playing Rad Racer 2, I was like, hey, this is how I remember Rad Racer. And even though they're on the same exact console, when you go back and watch a long play of Rad Racer, the original, it is like, oh, well, that's not, I don't remember it looking like that. But Rad Racer 2 is the upgrade. But where is the F1 car? Okay, I said cars because Rad Racer had two cars. Why would the sequel remove features?

Yeah, I don't know. I, I, it's funny, I forgot that Rad Racer had two cars. I just think of it as the F1 car because that's just like what sticks out to me. So I did wonder like, oh, why did they change the car?

Yeah, I don't know. I thought it was always just like a sports car. Sean, I didn't hear what you said. I thought it was like always just sort of like a, a sports car, maybe like Ferrari type jazz. Yeah, no, so the Rad, in the original Rad Racer, you can choose between the Ferrari and, you know, I'm calling it an F1 car, but whatever those, you know, low to the, super low to the ground only fit a human being and an engine. Yeah, like an F1 Indy car, whatever.

Right, right, exactly. It had both of those options. And, you know, it wasn't like, again, it wasn't going for the simulation aspect. So it wasn't too different. But the idea of being able to drive multiple cars in the first game just feels like a weird feature to strip out for the sequel. Yeah. But you do just get the Ferrari in Rad Racer 2.

And maybe they were going for branding, you know, maybe they want like, this is going to be our Mario is this car. So I don't want another car, even though Mario does have Luigi. This will be the square, yeah, this will be the square mascot, no matter if it's a racing game or whatever else. A golf game or something. That'll be the come to the Rad Racer golf. Yeah. But this car comes with a brand new feature, which is probably the most obvious thing to start with. Yeah, when you're, well, they call it the turbo boost ignition.

But I agree with you. It's got like a, it's got like a nitrous thing going on there. But it's basically, as far as I can tell, you can only activate this at the start of the course. Is that correct? You guys can't just do this in the middle of the game. You can do it whenever. Wow.

Okay. I was only doing it at the beginning because in the manual, it tells you that from a stopped position, you can press down on the controller pad, then you'll see the gauge in the user interface, like climb up. And then when it hits the top meter, you press the A button and immediately your car jumpstarts to 250 miles per hour, which is, which feels like a cheat code, but it is built into the car itself. And so I was only using it for that. But you're saying like you can use the turbo boost whenever.

I mean, I was just holding down up and I would accelerate faster. And there's like a little, it's sort of a similar sprite as your wheels kind of drifting. Yeah. Interesting. I just thought that was like to give it gas. Like I just thought like up on the D-pan was the equivalent of like pushing on. The A button is giving it gas. I thought I was doing something. Yeah. Like, I guess I was also doing it, but I was not equating that to the same. Like, I didn't realize that that was the same thing.

Maybe it's because of like cart racers where like, you know, the, the, that whole, like, if you hit, if you hit the accelerate button at the right time before the, before the race starts, you get that boost. I was just imagining it like that. And then, yeah, for the rest of the race, when I'm like holding up to like, to ramp that up, I was just thinking like, oh, I don't know. I guess I'm changing gears or something. I don't know why I was thinking it was different.

No, no, this isn't the simulation game we played however many weeks ago. Yeah. Now, Sean, that's very funny though. Cause you're right. My mind is, is so warped while I'm driving all these different cars and all these different racing games while all the rules change every single time. So you have to relearn how to drive an NES car in every single one of these games that it is true that I, I was holding down the A button, which you just need to do basically at all times and not thinking that that was the gas. I was thinking that up on the D pad was the gas. So I had two, I had my foot on two pedals at the same time.

But, but no, I mean, like you say that you were holding it the entire time, but I think, you know, part of where the, uh, the skill in this game comes from is, you know, there's actually like, you know, attraction system and, uh, a, uh, you're going to kind of have to, uh, go around the apex of turns and you're going to have to break at certain times. Like it's, you know, it's not quite as in depth as the, do you want the name of the game? Yeah, please say it. Michael Andretti is world. Michael Andretti boy. Such an easy one to remember. Yeah. Uh, it's not as in depth as, uh, Andretti boys, uh, opus, but it's still there. And I think there's a better sense of speed with it.

Yeah. It's, and I, I do now remember having the same feeling for the original rad racer, but it's impressive to me how they kind of nailed physics on this. It feels, and I don't know if they nailed it like actually, but it feels right to me. Like, you know, it feels good to drive and like not many games on the NES have this like sense of speed and weight and, and traction. Like you said, I think it also just comes off smooth too. More importantly, right? Like there's no, there's no jitteriness and there's no like man. Yeah, exactly.

But also just like, and the environment and the way it all tracks and maybe the preview direction indicator. I'm pulling all these terms from the manual, but the preview direction indicator is that, uh, thing in the UI in the bottom right that shows you which turn is coming up next. So unlike other 3d games where, you know, it doesn't give you a generous look ahead and you have to kind of just like look for the arrows at the last second and then turn. This is telling you right away, like, Hey, this is like a 90 degree hard turn. This is a 45 degree turn, like, and in which direction too, which is very helpful.

So it also helps you, uh, with steering, but even just the steering in general, like you can spin out and it, uh, you do slow down if you hit other cars and stuff like that. But, um, the overall, like, I don't know, like the, the turns aren't like so drastic that like if you're going at a really high speed and you don't, uh, you don't like anticipate the turn and immediately start, uh, drifting that you are just going to be in the dirt. Like it kind of, it gives you a lot of, it makes the track feel a lot larger than it is. And I think like, it's really important that they have those, those indicators there.

Um, not just because of like quality of life, but I think it also, as good as we have been saying, like the, you know, how it, how it renders the road as good as that is, it still isn't, it still feels off. Like it'll say there's a really sharp turn coming. And then as, as, uh, as Mike said, like, it doesn't really feel that sharp. The only thing that's also changing to make it that sharp is it's just affecting how fast you're going to fly off to the side. Cause it's not really rendering a sharp turn. It's rendering a normal turn and you're getting just pushed to the side faster. If that makes any sense.

And the courses themselves there, they aren't as traditional compared to what we've been playing, uh, at least lately, but in recent memory too, of just what, uh, tracks look like. These are, uh, squiggly lines that don't look too intentional and don't make up an actual like race track. They're just kind of like, okay, you start here and then you go to the right and then we do this loop de loop and then we do a sharp turn. And then we go to the left and then we do a couple of things over here and then we go back to the right and then the course is over.

And, uh, you know, it's nice that you're not driving in a circle or whatever. I mean, maybe not nice if you're a fan of NASCAR, but they're just not traditional courses. And that's probably because it's also not a traditional race. It's not enough to just race the course. It's a can bowl run. Yeah. You have to get to the checkpoints within a certain amount of time and otherwise the race is over. So it's also a race against these different sections. I just thought it was, um, you know, uh, unique for these driving games where it's, uh, it's not, uh, seven laps or something like that around the track and you're racing these other cars. It's a, it's a race against time. Kind of wish they wouldn't call them laps though.

What should they call them? Checkpoints. There we go. Well, yeah, that's, oh, sorry. Yeah. I thought you were about for the other games. Like I thought you had a new breaking term for meditation calls. Yeah. Loops you updated. Yeah. It's going to be 12 loops today, gentlemen.

Um, I, I was like, it must be very well, like thought out the, the length between these checkpoints because the amount of times where I was just coming to a slow and painful stop because I had ran out of time and just barely hit that checkpoint and then got that, that fuel back or whatever you're getting there and started moving was so frequent and very satisfying, like very nerve wracking before it happens. And like actually really ramps up the excitement when you're like, let's go. Like I just made it.

Yeah. I got that a lot too. I vaguely remember talking about that in the original Rad Racer too. Rad Racer as well. Um, so I, I, I guess this is maybe just a forte of theirs. You remember talking about that even though you didn't listen to the episode? I remember. Yeah. Back. How long ago was that? Uh, so long ago. It could have not been Rad Racer if there was another game where we did that, but I do remember us mentioning that. Maybe it wasn't on the podcast. Sean, I don't, I don't know how long ago it was. I think I just guessed three years ago. It was five years ago.

You've been doing the podcast for five years? We've been doing it for longer than that. No, it's, uh, we, we started in, we started in like February of 2018. Damn. Yeah. Ludicrous. Uh, episode 77, Rad Racer for those curious. It was an early one. First hundred games. Those are important games.

And our microphones all sounded great. Yeah. And with the power of Adobe AI, I'm sure that all those episodes will eventually sound even better. Uh, what else though? Okay. Because, um, you know, the driving is smooth. It's great. We don't want to, we don't want to complain too much. Cause then that says something about your essential games list vote. We don't want to give it too much praise. Cause then that says something about your essential games list vote. And I'd hate to let you know that, um, there's other features that are removed from this game. It's not just the number of cars. Uh, did you know that they also removed, uh, the 3d glasses? Like that, like that, those were in Rad Racer one.

And you know, it's funny online. Like when you read both, uh, contemporary and modern reviews of Rad Racer two, people always mention this. And I'm like, but is it really a big deal? Like how good was the 3d? I admittedly didn't try it with the, uh, with Rad Racer. How good is the 3d that it's now like, Oh, well, I don't even know if I'll pick this one up because it doesn't have the red and blue 3d glasses. I mean, I got to imagine the answer. I've got to imagine nothing but negative.

Yeah. To play in three. It has to suck. I have to think that's also why. What's that? I was going to say, I have to imagine that's why Rad Racer two looks better too. Is like, they had to, uh, for Rad Racer one, they had to work in the, you know, uh, what is that? Stereoscopic 3d? Like they had to, they had to make sure everything would be compatible. They had to actually put designated resources for that stupid gimmick. Right. So that stupid gimmick. So now that, you know, there's, this is a more pure experience, Mike. We don't need more cars. We don't need more dimensions. I just need, I just got the need, the need for speed.

Uh, I will say this is going to sound like I've run out of things to talk about, but this is actually something I've noticed. Uh, so I want to mention that I really enjoyed the color palette from level to level. And that's like, each level is beautiful. And, and like, yeah, I guess it's like graphics, but also just the, the colors. Like there's like a sun setting sky. Yeah, you got the fun sunsets. You got the night, the nightscapes. Yeah, the city, the city, uh, skylines with like the nighttime. There's like, there's a lot of like clear blue skies. There's the snow level, which you'd think would just be like white and blue. And it is, but something about it looks cleaner than other NES games.

It's, uh, it's got a great representation of New York City in it too. Yeah. I can see my, I can see my old apartment.

It also has a, um, a music track select before you get into each of the courses. Two tracks or, or hum to yourself.

But, uh, now it sounds like we're just going over every feature in the game. And at this point we might as well speculate. I think that was, it's cool though. I think it's funny that they say no music, which they should say like, is, would you like the sound effects of driving? Like realism mode or something? They just say, uh, sing, sing, sing yourself. That's what it says? I didn't even know that. Yes. That's hilarious. It's goofy.

And yes, I love it. We should have also been able to turn off the car sounds though and just enjoy the music. There were no car sounds if the music was playing. Cause I don't think the chip could handle that. Oh, I thought I was hearing sometimes. Well, you're, you hear like the wheels, but if you're just, if you're just playing it with, you know, sing along to yourself, you're, you're, you're hearing like, well, well, well, like cars got going past cars and like other softer sound effects. Uh, whereas with, um, any soundtrack, you're just hearing like the bare minimum, like, am I about to spin out? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

do you think rad racer 2 should have had another mode like there's no there's no two player there's no race against a computer there's no mission thing it's just these are the tracks complete them in x amount of time or else i don't know if it needed another mode but i'll say me personally i wouldn't have turned away another mode you know like racing games aren't always my thing so like i i wouldn't have minded something else i don't know what i would have wanted i mean if there was a two-player mode that would have been amazing um i mean this is just me like putting a wish list together like i don't think

this is necessarily a knock against the game but uh yeah for me personally it's a little straightforward i i think yeah i i think it does need another mode to really like put it over the top because right now it's just like a really cool tech demo of like a a faux 3d uh graphic style and like a really good like driving model and like if there's only just like time trial mode which is really all this is uh i it feels incomplete it's a really polished like mini game though

put it in final fantasy 7 rebirth hmm i'd be surprised if it wasn't in there i mean square has the rights to it so why not um but yeah i think you know without without giving away a vote or anything i think it's just stinks because i what i played was uh was a lot of fun and it is fun to control this car and ultimately like that's the that's the test right before anything else what are you what are you testing when you play these racing games for me it is you're testing the car how much fun is it to drive this thing would you agree in a way like i i would say uh one of the earlier racing games that i owned back on the playstation one um was ridge racer i want to say ridge racer 4 um

and i i really like the feel of the driving in that game it was you know like the graphics were cool uh driving felt tight but what i hated about it was that every opposing racer was just at like they were just equidistant from each other like between you in eighth place and the one guy up in first place like it like everyone was just like equally ahead of you and then that the next guy was equally ahead of that guy so it was never like a tense like oh who's gonna finish first it's just

like oh now i have to get past this guy uh it felt very sterile and in some ways like with like the patterns that you see on the road in this game it feels like that as well i know that like it's not gonna be like rc pro-am where it's actually showing uh each racer sort of acting independently as if it's also trying to win the race um this doesn't really have that it's sort of like a faux version

of that and i've never really been a big fan of of that style yeah i guess like now that you mentioned it too i mean rad racer 2 here is like these other cars aren't even really racers they're just kind of obstacles to you yeah they're either like a pattern or there's like they're either like oh you gotta just use this lane you have to get into this lane you have to get into that lane and then once in a while you have one that'll like fight back um but none of them like like once you pass them they're

just erased yeah yeah and it's weird too that they don't come up with uh any thinking of them as obstacles anything too interesting uh for like how to get around them like they're pretty spread out for the most part occasionally you'll run into like uh oh they're both in the they're in two lanes so i've got to squeeze into this one right um yeah i don't have an answer for this either but i'm just

saying like it kind of by the third or fourth track it just kind of becomes like a done deal thing and it's more about anticipating the more windy turns because that's what that's what happens between stages is that the the stage itself winds up becoming more wacky right by the time you get to what is it colorado or the snowy alps or whatever wherever that is the american alps yes yeah it's

the american alps everybody's familiar with them uh it becomes like you know oh it's it's a hard left and hard right hard left hard right it's like okay yeah like you're they're they're doing good in terms of changing up the track layouts and making it trickier but the actual obstacles or what's around you it doesn't uh it doesn't quite get there and on the sequels and spinoff side i mentioned that

there is no rad racer 3 which means that rad racer 2 probably didn't sell half a million copies or final fantasy 1 was about to sell so many copies that uh they were just gonna say like hey maybe we just focus our efforts on those games now and we're not a racing company anymore and you know how i know they're not a racing company anymore how mike what do you think square's next racing game was after rad racer 2 no joe any guesses um chocobo racing on the yes chocobo racing on the ps1 would be

so you see the final fantasy connection is there because they're definitely like yeah we're a final fantasy company now and chocobo racing would be the very next racing game they make nine years later um from when it released uh from the 1990 release uh chocobo racing came out in 1999 there was a standalone chocobo racing game in 1999 yeah it is basically like mario kart for final fantasy right

i've honestly as i was saying it i was only like 80 sure such a game existed but it sounded like really familiar to me and i remember like something on the like that not the play state the original playstation the ps1 i remember something specifically with the ps1 where there was like something that was only in japan or something like that uh chocobo racing made its way here and um let's see

uh you control final fantasy characters most of whom race in go-karts but then um pretty dumb but yeah like why would you be right why would you be writing chocobos yeah it's pretty pretty weird um i'm trying to figure out who the characters are let's see chocobo mog golem goblin black magician white mage chubby chocobo and behemoth uh the secret characters are cactuar bahamut uh cloud

aya and squall bahamut bahamut isn't they're just racing around with chocobos yep bahamut just showing up they love it what i was thinking of was um well i mean i was i did i had heard of the chocobo racing but i was also thinking of i was conflating it with chocobo world which apparently

oh that like that little thing that was a pedometer or something yeah but it was like compatible with the pocket station not the ps1 and and compatible somehow with final fantasy 8 and i don't know how i just always remember there being like some prompt or something like yeah load your pocket station or whatever what are you talking about i do remember that little tamagotchi pedometer thing and chocobo racing is still around today because chocobo gp just came out for the nintendo switch uh in 2022

wow it's an exclusive to nintendo switch only the switch can handle the power of chocobo gp is that their tagline it looks like it's not even a physical game you can buy physically it looks like it's one of those like digital downloads gotcha game probably yeah uh but as again it's cart racing it's not it's not chocobo racing so don't call it that so strange at least you actually control uh the chocobo though that's the end of the episode yeah i think so right oh no that's not the end of the episode sean we have to do we have to do that thing i said that we shouldn't talk too much about begin the first half of this episode because now we're going to decide whether rad racer 2 is on the essential games list

what rad racer 2 lacks in features it does make up for in terms of its driving experience and how cool it feels to be driving this car pretty fast too especially if you can pull off the turbo boost ignition uh going 255 miles per hour is is a nice uh is a nice way to also just feel powerful like on level one and it's nice that the manual is handing you that it's not something that you have to like

find out in a cheap magazine years later or something like it's just just readily available to you in the game but those kinds of things driving really fast and and smooth driving can only make up for a um a rather lackluster sequel because it's a sequel too that's the problem i don't think rad racer 2 is offering anything terribly different from the rad racer 1 experience and we lost the 3d glasses so pretty much just because we lost the 3d glasses i'm gonna uh say that this is a no joe this is already a genre that i usually find kind of kind of boring personally um this game did immediately kind of

suck me in with its um its physics and it's the feel of it and i i really enjoyed that for a bit but i do have to say that like that is a a big in big part a result of me having played plenty of other nes games and knowing how rare a game that feels like this is on the nes it's not necessarily so rare on anything that came after the nes and as something that just doesn't generally interest me in the first place it's not doing enough to to hook me otherwise so so it's a great nes racing game i it doesn't it doesn't do it doesn't do much that would make me think this has to be an essential game so no sean

yeah i kind of gave my vote away when i said cool tech demo uh not enough content i think if there was more content if there was actually like real racing mechanics in this game i i might put this up there uh but in its current state it's just it feels really cool to play for maybe like 15 20 minutes at a time uh so not essential all right that's three no's but maybe uh next week's double r racing game

oh not racing game double r roadrunner yeah double yeah roadrunner thank you sean for saving me i was talking about rocket ranger though rocket ranger will be the game we talk about next week and uh if anybody has any fond memories of rocket ranger or wants to check it out for the first time maybe you let us know your thoughts uh at uh on twitter i don't know x what do they call it nowadays we're still

there people do tweet us yeah you tweet in fact yeah go to other social platforms and just tag us we're not stumble upon we don't have yeah we don't have tell smarter child about nostalgia cast that conversation about the essential games list see what see what you think uh smarter child would think about uh a game like uh i don't know sean pick an essential game uh the grapes of wrath

yeah what does smarter child uh think about the grapes of wrath and can he write a book report about it i bet he could um we would have accepted dragon spirit chip and dale super c terra cresta because those are the latest essential games and so wouldn't it be nice if a game like rocket ranger uh join them next week um find out developed by john steinbeck sad sad sad sad

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