Here's one of those games I wanted as soon as I saw the cover art!
Interstate 76 released in 1997 by Activision for Windows 95 PCs. This was one of the
premier vehicular combat games released at a time when it seemed like there was
a new one of these kind of games coming out every other month. But just looking
at this box over and over at Best Buy back then was enough to permanently
embed it in my mind, with its promises of exploding muscle cars and characters
with polygons proudly on display. Inside the box you get some ads for other
Activision products, a handy reference card for the control layout, and a
substantial manual that's fashioned after the kind you'd get with a new car!
Covering everything it needs to with a few extra things like character bios and
whatnot, then there's the game itself on two CD-ROMs, at least with this original
release. There was also an upgraded gold release later, which was then re-released
in the Interstate 76: Arsenal box set, alongside the standalone expansion, the
Nitro pack. Nitro added new cars, weapons, missions, and online racing modes; but
it's still the same basic gameplay, just with new tidbits and minus any narrative
tying it together. And because of that we'll primarily be looking at the base
game.
First things first, Interstate 76 has an awesome installation process
mimicking the sounds of browsing through radio stations and setting the stage for
the game's story. "Keeping with the spirit of 76, 400,000 pounds of red white and
blue paper mache-- RADIO STATIC, FUNK MUSIC"
Once it's installed, you then choose your graphics card rendering mode while
listening to some prime funkadelia. Normally I'd choose 3Dfx Glide
mode since i'm playing this using a Voodoo3 card, but I was getting some
major texture-mapping glitches and had to use Direct3D rendering instead, so
that's what you'll be seeing. Anyway, once that's sorted out, you're shown one of the
longest intro videos around. This five-minute cutscene is like watching
the opening act of a 1970's crime drama, just with people that don't
have any real discernible facial features beyond excellent mustaches.
And it's worth mentioning the soundtrack right away because it is phenomenal!
Soul, funk, disco, and all sorts of groovy Redbook audio tunes fill the CD with
people like Santana keyboardist Tom Coaster and Third Eye Blind bassist Arian
Salazar performing and writing each of the increasingly excellent tracks.
Once that epic intro is finished it's on to the main menu, where you can play a
short tutorial, begin the story mode, or play multiplayer, either online or
against AI opponents. And since multiplayer features mostly the same
gameplay, well, let's just dive right into the story mode so you can see what plays
like. Interstate 76 takes place in 1976, appropriately enough, in a world where
the 1973 oil crisis only got worse.
This is led to a Mad Max-style dystopia where most everyone has strapped weapons
to their vehicles and goes out killing people in the search for gasoline. You
play the role of Groove Champion...
...yes really... on his mission to avenge the death of his sister Jade, who we saw get
shot in the opening cinematic. And it turns out that she was a vigilante, which
in this case is a citizen that took up arms against the gasoline raiders known
as Creepers, and he corrupt police forces that roam the highways. So Groove becomes
a vigilante as well and it turns out that he's just a natural at it, because
plot. So that's the basic, story but the other big appeal of I-76 though is the
car combat. Not only because vehicular violence is a lot of fun, but because the
structure of this particular game remains quite unique to this day. You can
think of this as an automotive game of Mechwarrior, but instead of mechs you have
armored muscle cars, and instead of military radio chatter you have
smack-talk and swearing. "Watch that shit cowboy!"
This comparison makes more sense than you might realize, seeing as it uses the
same engine as Mechwarrior 2 as well as being designed, written, and directed by
many of the same team members. Each mission, or scene as it's called here,
gives you a waypoint to reach and a task to perform once you arrive; like blowing
something up, or intercepting an enemy. Sometimes you'll have help from a partner
other times you're going at it alone, but no matter what you have some leeway in
how you complete your objectives.
Once you've completed them, you'll head back to headquarters and sort through
any salvaged parts from the vehicles you took down, and these parts can be
repaired and used as upgrades. And of course, you'll have to repair your own vehicle
before heading back out, so keeping a few spares on hand is a good idea.
You can also adjust armor and chassis strength from a preset number of points,
which becomes a necessity in later levels against certain enemies. And
that's the basic gist of it! There are 17 scenes from the main story to complete
following Groove on his path from basic revenge all the way up to undermining a
sinister plot involving government corruption and nuclear weapons. And you
know what? The whole thing is still absolutely captivating! The characters of
Groove, your mechanic Skeeter, and your partner Taurus are all just super
memorable, I love this stuff!
Anytime something happens to them I feel instantly invested in the upcoming
mission and committed to seeing the whole thing through all the way to the
end, in a way that the Mechwarrior games rarely ever pulled off for me. There's a
sense of camaraderie that makes I-76 stand out, with everything from the
overarching narrative to little touches like the poetry button.
Yes, there's a keyboard command dedicated strictly to asking Taurus to recite
poems. "Hey Stampede? How about a poem?"
"it's a high pitched sound
hot rubber eternally pressing against the blackened pavement, a wheel is forever, a car is
infinity times four."
"Yeah, I like that, man." Stuff like this goes a long way in making a game feel unique
and that's great but it gets better!
I haven't even gotten to the combat yet! Again it's a lot like a mech game in the
sense that you have a set of hard points on your vehicle, which can be linked
together, shot individually, and disabled by opponents if you're not careful.
Each major component of your vehicle can be disabled, actually, and if the wrong
part is shot off it can end a mission dead in its tracks.
Seeing as several of these rely on you doing things like pulling off stunts to
proceed, and if your car is screwed up that ain't gonna happen. And the AI doesn't
play nice at all, even on the easiest difficulty, so you'll want every machine
gun, rocket launcher, turret, landmine, oil slick, mortar launcher, and flamethrower
you can get. Each one is not only destructible but they have a limited
amount of ammo as well. There are no recharging energy weapons here because
hey, this is still 1976, even if it's an alternative one. At least you can gain
special abilities like nitrous oxide, radar jammers, and chassis enhancements,
from scrapping down enemies, that makes things a little better. And you also have
a map and list of things to follow, but again, being the seventies this is just a
compass, a paper map, and a notepad. And finally, you can shoot your pistol from
the driver's seat when things get really desperate. But good luck taking down an
armored helicopter like that...
As for actually using all this stuff it's all up to your own skill as a
driver to make it happen,
and of course, learning how to use each system and when. The missions have some
real variety too, you've even got stealth areas where you have to turn off your
engine and coast right by turrets. So it's always keeping you engaged by
having you try new things. And barring a few exceptions, it works quite smoothly.
Like, it can be difficult to judge what terrain will ruin your day or not,
largely because of how it's rendered. There's an awful lot of object pop-in
going on and level of detail stuff that even on the highest settings doesn't go
away. So if you go off-road it's a huge risk sometimes, especially since anytime
your car flips
over on its roof, it's an instant game over. The camera also leaves
something to be desired, with the view either being obscured or the camera
bouncing around so much that it makes your eyes straight to see ahead. Still,
overall, the combat is pretty freaking solid for a game of its time, and it's a
whole lot better than the alternatives on pc back then. You know, games like
Streets of SimCity, which actually shares quite a bit in common in terms of genre
and seventy theme. But for all the novel elements that game had (and I still have
a soft spot for it)
Interstate 76 and Streets of SimCity are two games that couldn't be farther apart
in terms of how downright playable they still are.
I-76 is just a ton of fun to play through even today, and I'd still highly
recommend it if you can get it running properly. And that's a big if, as it's
notorious for performance and physics issues on modern hardware, even with that
digital release on GOG. It still just doesn't work right. You can patch that up
and tweak some files for compatibility but it still doesn't play quite as it
should in my experience. But once you DO find its groove and everything is going
nicely, Interstate 76 is well worth it for the story it tells, the carnage you
take part in, the terrific soundtrack, and of course, the poetry. "Across white space
to the frozen shore, I see through curls and eddies of falling snow
the once green field, and a birthday on the grass, a party for three in the Boston sun.
All now covered with snow."
If you enjoyed this episode why not check out some of my others? And sometime
in the future I hope to cover the sequel, Interstate 82, and the spin-off Vigilante 8!
So stay tuned or subscribe if you so desire. And as always, thank you very much
for watching LGR!