Burnin Rubber - MHT Soft Commodore 64 game

When you're not spending long hours slaving over a hot keyboard and joystick, do any of you out there go to the cinema? Do you remember the cinema? It used to be popular before the era of computers. If you do remember, then you might have seen "Death Race 2000," and "Burnin Rubber" from Audiogenic is the veritable game based on the film.

As you progress through the game, completing rounds enables you to move on to the next season. Scoring is achieved by destroying your competitors on the track. The larger the opposition, the higher your score, with a bonus feature if you manage to complete an entire round. Supposedly, there are over 32 different tracks to try out, but only the first 16 are available from the start.

The graphics are good, though not brilliant. The flying car is particularly well done. Sound and music are also well-executed, with the added advantage that you can toggle the sound on and off with the F5 key. According to Audiogenic, the car can be controlled via the keyboard or joystick. The latter is by far the better option. This is an intergalactic four-season death race with the sole objective of running as many other cars as possible off the track (a refreshing change from Pole Position). There are various types of entrants, most of which can be dealt with reasonably easily, except for the indestructible tank cars, which should be avoided at all costs!

To help you add to the carnage and get out of tricky situations, your super car can fly for a limited period when speeding in excess of 100MPH. I found myself needing to do this on numerous occasions to avoid the track's obstructions.

The only drawback I encountered with this game was the long wait between using the high score table and starting the next game. This was made worse by the addictive nature of the game itself. I reviewed "Burnin Rubber" over the Christmas period, and suffice it to say that I was still trying to achieve a higher score than my brother at 1:30 a.m. on Boxing Day morning. It's definitely one for the collection.