Continental Circus

Copyright : Virgin Mastertronic | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Another great arcade racer from Taito gets the CPC conversion treatment, the idea is much the same as all the other racers you have seen and played throughout the years. Race around the various courses, aim for the checkpoints for more time and get your position ranking down to a certain level in order to qualify for the next stage. The worlds biggest and best racers have gotten together for this event fo you have better make a good impression - start your engine!

Graphics

This is one of those games I certainly did pick up at the local software store for the graphics only, the back of the box was covered in great looking screen shots and simply begged to be bought, at the price of £2.99 I couldn?t resist it.

Once the game had loaded I certainly had no regrets in buying the game, colours are spot on and have been used very well in this conversion of Continental Circus, in fact they are even more realistic to the arcade than some of the 16-bit versions that followed. For those not familiar with WEC Le Mans or many other racers on the CPC then it kind of resembles the Atari game "Pole Position" but beats it hands down in terms of graphics (obviously).

Race tracks have been ported from the gigantic arcade to your tiny CPC very well and remain true to the initial game, those that had played the coin-op in the first place will feel right at home with the conversion. Very good stuff indeed from Taito.

Sound

Sound is very impressive, there is plenty of music throughout the game and enough sounds to knock even the biggest racer off the top spot. Upon starting a new race you are treated to a different piece of introduction music that really gets you geared up for the race ahead, when completing the race without managing to qualify you are treated to a different piece of music to that you would hear if you did qualify.

They also put a lot of attention into the in-game sounds as you actually hear your engine screaming for you to let go of the accelerator, cars go whizzing past you at speed and bumps, knocks, checkpoints all sound amazing. Again a very top notch job.

Gameplay

Well there is no doubt that I loved this game when it was released and after playing it again via a lovely emulator I can honestly say that the game still hols the same level of addiction. Once you start the race and fail to qualify you simply must start again and this time get through to the next round, if you do manage to qualify then the next race is even more important for you to win - it realy is that good!

If you are a fan of racing games then Continental Circus is one CPC title you simply must have in your collection and get it RIGHT now!