A cousin of mine lived with me for about a year. Why is this relevant to Rock N Roll Racing? He brought his Super Nintendo with him. Guess what game he had in his collection?



Besides Contra 3 and Legend of the Mystical Ninja, one of the games he had was Rock N Roll Racing. Ever hear of a company called Blizzard? They went on to make games like Starcraft and Diablo. They now also have a somewhat popular multiplayer role playing game called World of Warcraft. They made a few games prior to those in the 16-bit era, Rock N Roll racing being one of them.



This is one of the only racing games I like. You race to earn money for upgrades. You can upgrade your gun to shoot the other racers, a jump move, land mines, faster engines, and a few other upgrades. You can buy new vehicles. There is a two player mode. Different races to pick from, including a secret one from another Blizzard game Lost Vikings. After you complete a set of races you travel to a new planet to race on. Different planets have different races or themes, for example an ice planet where everything is slippery. Fun stuff.



What made the game really notable back in those days was the "rock and roll" soundtrack. Five songs without lyrics played in the background of the races. Same five over and over. The songs are: Paranoid by black sabbath. The peter gunn theme by Henry Mancini. Highway Star by Deep Purple. Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf. Bad to the Bone by George Thorogood. .There was an extra song on the genesis version, Radar Love by Golden Earring. Also worth mentioning about the sound of the game is the over the top narrator of the races. More games need that.



If you can pick this up, I suggest the Super Nintendo version over the genesis one. When you hit the turns you can hold the L or R buttons to help turn quicker. Just makes the game easier to play. There was also a gameboy advance port made available. There was also a sequel released called Red Asphalt here in the United States and "Rock n Roll Racing 2: Red Asphalt" elsehwere in the world. Did anyone play that? I'm curious to find it now.

I wanted to have this up last week, lost the only draft of it and had to rewrite it all.

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