So in the first two installments of Arcade Rewind, I covered two of the biggest, badest, rarest, most outrageous arcade machines ever created: Sega's R360 and Namco's Galaxian 3. This time I want to take a different route. I want to focus on a sleeper... a game that has nothing particularly special about it... a game that doesn't have a great deal of depth, one that didn't revolutionize anything, nor make tons of money. I'm looking for a game that showcases arcade festiveness, but could have been developed further.
I decided to pick Sega's GP Rider, a fun little motorcycle racing game released in 1990 that lacks depth, but delivers quality graphics (for the time) and an awesome soundtrack.
Spend enough time with me and you'll learn I'm a big fan of Sega's racing games. Namco's Ridge Racer series is truly the only competitor to an otherwise dominant force of Sega racing titles in the late 80's and early 90's. GP Rider, however, is certainly not the greatest Sega racer out there, but perhaps the point of this article is to show that even when Sega was not at their best, they still turned out great racing games.
Though manufacturers started experimenting with 3D graphics for some of their arcade games around 1990, GP Rider is an entirely 2D sprite driven racer that featured some highly praised graphics for its day. GP Rider uses the same hardware found in such hits as After Burner, Thunder Blade, and Super Monaco GP (a first person racing game released a year earlier). The machine was released in two cabinet formats, both of which featured 2 player support: a ride on motorcycle cabinet, and a standard upright cabinet (which are fairly rare sightings).
The gameplay is fairly standard. You can choose either an automatic or manual transmision motorcycle and you have a limited amount of time to complete each lap. Completing a lap earns you additional time to race, and completing 4 laps completes the game. One of GP Rider's drawbacks is that only has one race track, but it's a damn good design. I have a strong feeling that development of this game was rushed and that there may have originally been additional racetracks planned for the game. I say this because the game has a very in depth soundtrack that is under-utilized (some of my favorite video game music from this era comes from this game, and THAT'S saying something). The game has a music theme that is played only when you use the automatic transmission. It has a separate theme for when you play with a manual transmission, and a third theme for when you play a two player game. Three complete music tracks and only one race track? Hmmm... It was only two years later that Sega began releasing most of their racing games with three race tracks to choose from, so I've always thought that this game was originally slated to have more content, but got rushed to production.
The game was also ported to both the Sega Master system and the Sega Game Gear... but let's not talk about those...
Here's a gameplay video showing literally the entire game - not as easy it looks... Getting 1st place is probably near impossible unless you're playing a well calibrated sitdown model:
Well that's GP Rider, a fun little racing game that proves that it really didn't take much to make a nice arcade title back in the day. I admire this game because it knows what it is and isn't trying to be anything spectacular... just good ol' motorcycle racing fun! I only wish it had more racetracks... oh well. I'm sure I will revisit the Sega racing genre soon... I believe an Outrun anthology is in order for some point down the road. Stay tuned.
