Stunt Track Racer
Description official description
Race a single computer opponent for first place on a unique racetrack -- 100 feet in the air! You start in the fourth three-man division of a league, all racing each other twice, and must come top to progress. The action is viewed from within the car throughout the 3-lap races, with the distance between you always on screen.
Jump chasms, jumps, and drawbridges; take banks hard or slow; pass your opponent on the track or while catching mass air. Your car has the ability to burn a limited amount of turbo boost fuel as a way to accelerate faster and achieve higher speeds, but don't use it all up at once or you'll fall behind. Don't damage your engine too much; severe dents will show up during your next race.
Whatever you do, don't fall off the track, as this will cost you time as you are placed back on.
Spellings
- טורבו - המירוץ בגבהים - Hewbrew spelling
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Screenshots
Promos
Credits (DOS version)
6 People
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 85% (based on 31 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 68 ratings with 1 reviews)
Brilliant technical presentation on modest hardware.
The Good
Stunt Track Racer has such a simple premise and gameplay concept that I'm not quite sure how to review it. For those not familiar with the game, you essentially race around on a race track 100 feet off the ground in a car that can turbo-boost it's way off jumps and around turns. It doesn't sound that interesting written down, but playing the game immediately changes your mind: Your car bounces around the track at high speed. There are jumps, drawbridges, and devilishly-constructed jumps before turns. The physics model can make or break a game like this, and in retrospect it probably shouldn't have been attempted on such a slow machine. But it comes through with flying colors! You really get the feeling that you're up that high, that you're landing that hard, and that you're being thrown into that turn that roughly.
And the graphics are 3D! Simple hidden-wireframe with a filler that cuts corners, yes, but 3D all the same. And with pretty impressive framerates on early slow hardware to boot.
The Bad
Being able to save your game only during the end of a division heat is inconvenient. Also, the car AI seems to always know something you don't--I've seen them do some nearly-impossible things, which leads me to believe that, possibly, computer-controlled cars don't suffer from damage like the player does.
The Bottom Line
An early, wonderfully surprising, fun stunt racing game that everyone should play.
DOS · by Trixter (8962) · 2000
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Stunt Car Racer appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Cancelled sequel
In 2003 Geoff Crammond started the work on a sequel called Stunt Car Racer Pro, but after a long time without any news about the project, it was officially canned in February 2005.
Multiplayer
Stunt Car Racer could be played with two players using a serial connection between two machines. This also worked with different systems, so you could also connect an Amiga with an Atari ST, which was quite unusual at this time.
Programming
Even with it's (simple) 3D graphics and physics model, Stunt Track Racer runs at a decent clip on a 4.77MHz machine with CGA, and full speed on any machine 8MHz or faster. Extremely well-optimized programming!
While the CGA version of the game didn't do any speed checking and runs too fast on modern hardware, the EGA version was throttled by the EGA page-flipping, and runs perfectly on modern hardware.
Amstrad CPC versions
There were two versions of the game for Amstrad CPC: for CPC 464 and CPC 6128. The latter came complete with an extra multiplayer mode and a "hall of fame" gallery. These two features did not exist in CPC 464 version.
Stunt Car Racer TNT
"Stunt Car Racer TNT" (The New Tracks) is an unofficial enhancement of the original game released for Amiga. It was made by hackers and offered eight new tracks. Colour palette during the race was changed as well as there were some slight modifications of the title screen.
References
Although it was almost a decade old at the time, Stunt Track Racer was remembered and mentioned as a comparison in CDMAG's review of Whiplash.
Awards
- ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)
- February 1991 (issue #41) - Included in the list Greatest Games of all Time, section Racing Games (editorial staff choice)
- Amiga Power
- May 1991 (Issue #00) - #10 in the "All Time Top 100 Amiga Games"
- Commodore Format
- June 1991 (Issue 9) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
- July 1993 (Issue 34) - Modern Classics: Driving Games
- March 1994 (Issue 42) Heaven – The Path to Righteousness: 20 Essential Games
- November 1994 (Issue 50) – #48 The All-Time Top 50 C64 Games
- October 1995 (Issue 61) – The Top Ten C64 Games of all Time
- Zzap!
- January 1990 (Issue 57) – 'The Best Games of the 80's Decade' (Phil King)
Information also contributed by GP4Flo, mailmanppa
Analytics
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Stunt Car Racer - Wikipedia
article in the open encyclopedia
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Trixter.
Amiga added by EboMike. Commodore 64 added by Quapil. ZX Spectrum added by Martin Smith. Atari ST added by tas fee. Amstrad CPC added by Игги Друге.
Additional contributors: Tomer Gabel, Yearman, mailmanppa, Jo ST, FatherJack.
Game added January 23rd, 2000. Last modified August 15th, 2023.