With the realism of modern car vids boosted by crazy polygon count and complex physics engines, it's easy to forget from whence the genre sprang, and so it's time to revisit the early years. The 1980s was a formative decade for driving games; it began with Rally-X and ended with Out Run. What's the best 1980s arcade driving game?
It was Taito's Chase HQ. Back in 1988, this was what was considered badass — chasing down a Lotus Esprit with a Porsche 928, on some sort of crime-fighting mission. Perhaps the good-guy schtick was to counteract the whole glorification of speeding thing, who knows. But the sound effects and graphics at the time were rad, as were the driving dynamics. Also, it was always free — everyone else was over at Out Run.
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