Rock n’ Roll Racing is a game that I’ve actually wanted to talk about for a long time and thanks to Blizzard re-releasing it earlier this year as part of their 30th anniversary compilation, the Blizzard Arcade Collection, I have cause to do so.
Although referred to today as a Blizzard title, Rock n’ Roll Racing’s original release actually predates the Blizzard brand name. Silicon & Synapse ,as they were back then, developed the game and Interplay published it in the USA in 1993 and Europe in 1994 for both the Super Nintendo and Megadrive.
As unlikely as it seems for the company that became Blizzard to make a racing game, Rock n’ Roll Racing wasn’t even their first attempt at the genre. In 1992 they released RPM (Radical Psycho Machine) Racing. This was another isometric game which was a forerunner to Rock n’ Roll Racing in many respects. Rock n’ Roll Racing was reportedly going to be a direct sequel to RPM Racing at some point during development but thanks to a bit of publisher interference what we got instead was a much more exciting package. RPM Racing isn’t a very good game in my opinion and I very much doubt a direct sequel would have had either the awesome 90s comic book aesthetic or headbanging soundtrack of the game we ended up getting.
At its core, Rock n’ Roll Racing is a fairly typical isometric racer in the style of RC Pro-Am and its many clones with an added emphasis on vehicular combat. Each vehicle has a range of weapons, both forward and rearward facing to add a bit of spice to proceedings as well as some less lethal power ups such as jump jets or rocket boosters. The main game mode has you racing and fighting your way through 6 planets against the local champion and 2 other racers who follow you through the whole game. You move on to the next planet once you’ve accumulated enough points to advance. Along the way you can spend your winnings on upgrading or replacing your car, which is a necessity as your opponents will be doing the same, quite aggressively.
I thought this game was so cool as a kid, it was basically everything a 9 year old in the 90s could ask for. It had cool looking future cars, aliens, robots, heavy metal, explosions. It even had a talking announcer! Unbeknownst to me at the time, this announcer was voiced by AMA Supercross commentator Larry “Supermouth” Huffman. I had no idea who he was back then but his mannerisms were so memorable that I can hear him perfectly in my head whenever I think about this game. Turns out this wasn’t the only game I owned which featured his voice, maybe I’ll talk about the other one some day.
As a sign that I’m getting on a bit these days, I first played Rock n’ Roll Racing when it was pretty new. A friend of mine, who generally had a lot of games, owned it and we used to play it in-split screen a lot. As well as playing at his house I eventually got myself a used copy and played it to death all over again. Even without the re-release I still played this game fairly regularly, probably once a year or so. I play it often enough that I actually keep some passwords written down for if I don’t feel like starting over.
Although I think this is one of the best combat racing games of its era and that it’s still a really stylish and fun game to play, it’s obviously rather dated. In particular, the nature of the media it was released on means it’s only got a limited amount of content. As cool as the cars are, there’s only a couple of them to choose from and generally it’s a linear progression of replacing them. There’s also a lot of races in each world but not many tracks. This leads to just grinding out the same races over and over. What really holds it all together however is the presentation. It’s an amazing time capsule of 90s comic-book cheese that also just happens to be a solid game underneath.
At the time you could choose from the Super Nintendo or Sega Megadrive version. Both I and my friend had the Nintendo version and in retrospect that seems like the correct choice. Even though the Megadrive version has extra music and more tracks it looks and sounds pretty terrible in comparison. I grew up mostly as a Sega fan and even I can’t make a case for that version being anywhere near the best. Only having a 3 button pad on the Megadrive also makes the controls quite a bit clunkier on that console too. The Blizzard Arcade Collection release actually includes both versions so you can make your own mind up on which one you prefer. As part of the collection you get both the original versions of Rock n’ Roll Racing packaged with a new “definitive edition” remaster and a few extra options such as rewind, save states and screen filters. I’m not normally a big fan of filters but these are ok. It’s just basic CRT effects and scanline stuff, there’s no horrible smoothing that makes it look like a finger painting.
The real star of the package is the definitive edition. I was surprised at just how much effort has gone into this. I expected it to just be a widescreen edition of the Super Nintendo version but I am very glad to be mistaken. The graphics are definitely based on the Super Nintendo but they’ve been upscaled really well and given added effects and all-new on screen text. They’ve re-recorded all of Larry Huffman’s voice lines and added new ones and he goes absolutely ham while delivering them. As a final cherry on top you can choose between the original chiptune music and an expanded soundtrack of actual recordings. I have seen people be disappointed at the omission of Paranoid by Black Sabbath from the soundtrack but in its place we get the previously Megadrive-exclusive Radar Love by Golden Earring as well as Breaking the Law from Judas Priest and Red Barchetta by Rush.
The first time I played this I had such a big smile on my face. Whatever you want to say about Blizzard it’s clear that somebody there still cares about their old games from the amount of effort that has gone into making this definitive edition. They have taken nothing away and everything they’ve added is within the spirit of the original game. Nothing looks out of place, nothing seems tacked on, it all works. They’ve taken something that I had a lot of nostalgia for and polished it up to the point where I don’t really feel like playing the original versions of the game. If you do decide to play the originals, you’ll find that the password system works across all versions so there’s no need to worry about starting over from the beginning each time. You can carry your progress across.
The Blizzard Arcade Collection is currently available as part of Blizzard’s 30th anniversary bundles. It is included with every tier of the package which is currently available until February 2022. There’s no word on whether this compilation will be available after that period or not sadly. I hope they don’t “pull a Nintendo” on this and de-list it at the end of the anniversary celebrations.
Unless you play a lot of Blizzard titles I would recommend just getting the bottom tier of the package so you’re not just paying more for extras you won’t use. At £16-something for the lowest tier I think you get pretty good value from this compilation even if you’re not interested in everything you get. I know that I have certainly had my money’s worth out of it already just from this one game. I can’t speak for the quality of the other parts of the package as they’re games that I have never really spent a lot of time with previously or really have a lot of interest in but from the point of view of this one game I am extremely satisfied.
Highway Forever 