Before Mario Kart arrived on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992, there were various
things, such as Boglins and The frickin' Centurions every Sunday morning at 8am.
But of more contextual relevance to this video, there was Power Drift.
Developed and released by Sega in 1988 on their Y Board arcade hardware.
This hardware allowed for some impressive sprite scaling techniques which drew the attention
of your regular arcade pundit like flies to a fluorescent bulb.
Come 1989 and the game would make it's inevitable way to home computer systems.
Developed by Sega and published by Activision, the Amstrad CPC iteration is what we're looking
at here.
Now as you may imagine, Amstrad's 8 bit hardware is very far removed from the cutting edge
arcade hardware in the late 80s.
However these ports tried their hardest, and as kids we loved them pretty much whatever
state they were churned out in.
Upon loading Power Drift, you are presented with a spinning wireframe logo which soon
enough melds into the menu screen.
You are then given the choice of control scheme before picking your driver from assorted riff-raffs.
Some possibly blind, others based on 80s film stars, and some guy who looks like he's on
his office lunch break.
You're then requested to choose your track, before appearing in a pseudo 3D landscape,
reminiscent of most 1980s driving games.
However, you'll probably note that the graphics are very well presented.
The Amstrad offers a good range of colour, and everything is clearly defined.
Once the traffic lights allow, animation is pretty fluid as well.
All this creates a pleasing game atmosphere.
The fire button is reserved for switching between hi and lo gear, whilst up accelerates
you forward.
The game is a joy to get into, and for the first few minutes it's incredible.
You could be forgiven for thinking you were playing Mario Kart.
Alright maybe not.
You see, after a few minutes, you begin to zone out.
Corner after corner is so straight forward and mundane, that your eyes de-focus.
But yet you can still play with relative ease.
Even the undulating track which apparently have no support structures doesn't phase you.
That is, until you hit an opponent.
Oh no.
When this happens, you crash, and you crash hard.
Collision detection isn't bad, but why crash?
A little bump, a slow down, that would be fine.
But a full blown crash just becomes pretty darn tedious.
Especially as the guy in first position is relentlessly hard.
The other 11 racers are a doddle.
But number one is like trying to catch up to a moped in an electric milk float.
Still, coming top 3 allows you to continue to the next track, and the next track and
the next track.
It's quite hard to tell the difference between these tracks.
You get the odd detail change.
Some speed bumps, but it's all very samey.
But for all that.
It's still an admirable little karting experience, and you can easily pour half an hour into
this game in what feels the blink of an eye.
So if you have a CPC, or just the internet and an emulator.
Give it a go.
You may find yourself surprised with Sugar's hardware, just as I was.