"The cartridge that'll tell if you really should be out in the street driving. Controlling the action with your remote controller, steer your way through 27 different games and variations. Race against the clock or race against a friend."
Street Racer was one of the nine titles originaly released with the Atari VCS system.
The cartridge offers 27 game variations based on 6 games: Street Racer, Slalom, Dodgem, Jet Shooter, Number Cruncher, and Scoop Ball. Each game has a two minute and sixteen second time limit.
Street Racer
Street Racer illustrate the main game principle from which others are derivated. Each player use the knob on their controller to steer his car around the vertically oncoming cars. Press the controller button to accelerate speed. You score one point for every car you pass.
1, 2, 3 or 4 players each control one car on the track playfield. In one and two-player games, each player uses a separate vertical track. In three and four-player games, two players share one track.
Street Racer was insipired by arcade game Speed Race, from Taito (1974), which pioneered vertical scrolling racing video games, though the genre long existed before with electro-mechanical arcade games.
Slalom
Same as Street Racer, but here you control a skier who must pass through the gates...
Dodgem
Almost the same game as Street Racer though the object here is to move your car from the bottom to the top of the track while dodging oncoming obstacles. Your score one point each time you reach the top of the track.
Your car look more like a spaceship, and oncoming obstacles like asteroids. Thereby, Dodgem seem to be more a port of the Atari early arcade game Space Race, than a variation of Street Racer...
Jet Shooter
In this variation, your car become a jet fighter, and obstacles are ennemy planes. While piloting your aircfaft, you must destroy as many ennemy planes as possible by shooting as them. A small shoot'em up for 2 players...
Number Cruncher
Same game as Street Racer, except oncoming cars are replaced with numbers (2,4 or 6). You score the face value of each number you squash with your chopper...
Scoop Ball
The object here is to catch balls (crosses!) and deposit them into a Computer Scooper. Use your moving Scooper to catch the balls. Continue to catch balls until a Computer Scooper appears on the screen. When you steer your Scooper into the Computer Scooper, you score three points and deposit the ball or balls you've collected.
Sears also published a version of Street Racer under the name Speedway II.
Larry Kaplan, the programmer of the game, says in an interview (see link below):
"Street Racer is the game that lacks good game play. I took out the moving playfield because it didn’t flow right (it tended to flicker). If I could change the game to have a smooth-scrolling playfield, it would make the game play better."
yann64andClaude Opus 5.5
de19014649