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Aqua Racer |
Copyright/Publisher: Bubble Bus, Release Year: 1985,
Genre: Water Sports, Number Of Players: 1
Pole Position at sea.
This is a water born version of Pole Position, with speedboats instead of cars and
a lake in a place of the race track.
You have to guide your boat around 20 courses, firstly in a qualifying round and
then in a main round, beating a set time on each run in order to continue. The courses
are marked out by a series of poles, occasionally marked with a direction arrow to indicate
the curve of the bend ahead.
Other boats are also on the course and will do their best to get in your way and cause
you to crash on force you into the poles or off the course.
Your boat has two gears and a top speed of 110. You accelerate by pushing the joystick
forward and decelerate by pulling back. The fire button changes gear.
Once the course your boat responds very sharply to left and right movements and this
will take a while to get used to. The corners provide the biggest hazard and you will
have to hug the edge of the course to avoid the oncoming traffic.
The 20 courses increase in difficulty getting narrower and more twisty as you progress.
You can practice on any of the routes without other boats to hinder you or let the game
go in to demo mode where it crashes frequently.
The sound is just the roar of the engine and a crash when you sink. The other boats
are the same as yours and the far horizon shows a shoreline which moves left and right
as you do. |
Learning the courses |
The real value of the game is in the increasing difficulty of the courses. They
present a strong long term challenges since you have to first familiarize yourself with
the bends and then improve your technique till you can beat the time.
This means that just another Pole Position rip-off justifies itself by being tough
enough to threaten any driving experts, particularly since the other boats home in on
you by appearing in your path and swinging slowly after you if you move.
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Gary Penn |
Well, well, well, what does this turn out to be but another Pole Position derivative,
albeit an above average one. This time the race is set on a lake with appropriate
graphics and unimaginative sound (it sounded a bit too much like a racing car to me).
I wasn't exactly overawed at first but I have to confess I found myself coming back to
this one. A credible rip-off.
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B.W. |
With all the duff versions of Pole Position around it's nice to see this one with a
new slant to it and lots of difficulty. There are one or two things that could be
improved though. The course wants to be more clearly defined and some of the graphics
and sound effects at crashes could be enhanced. The movement of the boat also needs
to be made a little less sensitive to stop you careering all over the place.
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Julian Rignall |
A Pole Position with a rip-roaring burn around a power boat track. Rather unconvincing
graphics and no real fell to the steering don't give much realism to the game, although
the 3D effects are quite reasonable. Twenty courses add variety but they are all pretty
similar with thinner and more twisting tracks increasing the difficulty levels. Still,
the game rises above most in its class.
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