Turbo Outrun (2024) Plus/4

a FREEWARE fangame by TCFS, Unreal and Csabo for the Commodore Plus/4,

Written for BrewOtaku #001 by Syed Raza

Turbo Outrun takes many of us back to the golden 16 bit era of gaming, where such competitive racing titles were often restricted to Arcade cabinets. Coin after coin spent, just to become more efficient and master the racing tracks without struggles. This pain still haunts every gamer that can relate. Not every home computer back then had its conversion, some of them were not even enjoyable, but with limited hardware certainly comes limited possibilities.

The smell of burning rubber

Alas, the prayers of the few Plus/4 users remaining, were answered. Sasvári ‘TCFS’ Tamás, Csaba ‘Unreal’ Kemeri and
Csabo/LOD stepped in redoing the game for the Commodore Plus/4.

As people say, a work of art has different building blocks that makes it stand out. Here the exact same philosophy was put forward in the production of this title. Analysing the behaviour of the existing variants, must have take ages for TCFS. Re-coding the whole thing for a basically outdated CPU, must have been even more painful in today’s time. Looking at the extraordinary result, it seems TCFS still has a lot of routine and experience with that and earns our full respect.

There is not a coincidence, that this version is called the ‘Maestro’ of Plus/4 games, given the amount of hard work
that has been put into making this a reality. The launch day on 14th January 2024 marked its nearly 40th anniversary
of the release of the Plus/4.

While the coder is one major part in developing a game, there are other essences needed, to make a game a good game. The visuals and the soundtrack please the eye and the ear. Unreal, member of Methabolix (MX), is a long time served demoscener and also very well familiar with limitations. His graphical contribution improved the areas of the original version, which lacked proper graphical depth, making this version simply more appealing and stunning to the eye.

Csaba, member of Legion of Doom (LOD), was the genie behind the exhilarating music you get to hear. This man rewrote every single note and track that the game had, an absolute chippy bleeps and blops wizardry at its absolute finest!

These guys are definitely a dream combination. Words can not justify what they did, you gotta play the result yourself!

The game itself was and still is a must-play title, with several destinations to race in, each of different lengths and with different backgrounds, resembling real cities. The New York City track is filled with typical metropolitan buildings, whereas the Oklahoma track is surrounded by more nature elements, such as trees and distant mountains. After every checkpoint you transit into a different landscape, which in itself is a nice experience. While observing careful, you will notice changed elements, such as lined roads, improved greenery and trees – compared to other versions of the game.

You are given the ability to play with either manual or automatic transmission. Playing with the automatic transmission is an experience similar to what you would find on mostly PC driven retro titles, however the manual mode takes it up a notch with additional controls to shift gears depending on the speed of the car. A true retro gamer might count on manual gearing, but this is also subject to your own personal taste. Sadly, you cannot down-gear, but we want speed. Right?

While writing about speed, there comes a responsibility too. Possibly not for you as the player, but the local police needs to do their job as well. Make sure the cops don’t grab your attention.

The game occasionally gives you the chance to upgrade your car — which improves the fun factor a lot. You can tune your engine or also spend an update to your tires, so you have a better grip on the street.

The controls of the game are responsive, as they should be. Overall, the gaming pleasure is indeed a pleasure. Although with the system’s limitations, there were minor compromises, just as weather situations are not simulated. Nonetheless, right decisions were made overall.

Conclusion

Turbo Outrun for the Plus/4 pushes the hardware limits and is the best racing game up until today. We are seriously
speechless, in the very most positive way you can imagine. Thank you TCFS, Unreal and Csabo — and certainly everyone involved in testing and making this ace!

Link: https://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Turbo_Outrun

 

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