Top Gear

Publisher: Kemco
Developer: Gremlin Graphics
Release Date: April 1992

When you think of Super Nintendo racing games, Top Gear is one that inevitably comes to mind. Produced by European developer Gremlin Graphics, publishers of the excellent Lotus Turbo Challenge racing series on the Amiga and Atari ST computers, Top Gear was one of the system's first racers, and remains today as one of the best.

A 2-player, split-screen arcade-style racer in the mold of Sega's OutRun, Top Gear borrows heavily from Lotus in both style and gameplay. Unlike OutRun, which is a race against the clock, Top Gear is a race against 19 other racers in a four-race circuit. You must finish in the top 5 of each race to advance to the next track, and you must finish in the top 3 of the standings to advance to the next circuit. There are 32 tracks in all.

The game is a blast to play, particularly against a friend. It is always in split-screen mode-- when a friend is not playing, a computer player operates the bottom screen. There are four cars to choose from, with varying attributes for some variety, but it remains a very basic and bare-bones, pick-up-and-play racer. The music is particularly unique in style, and remains as one of the most memorable scores on the system, though most of the songs are actually sampled from previous Lotus games.

The Top Gear name, though now obscure, continues to live on today. Two sequels were made for Super NES: Top Gear 2 and Top Gear 3000. The series then moved to Nintendo 64, and sporadic versions have been made for various consoles and handhelds in the last few years. Unfortunately once the series moved to N64, it became a mere brand-name, as the gameplay had considerably changed in the move to 3D, and Gremlin Graphics was no longer involved. Still, gamers who grew up on the Super Nintendo will always remember Top Gear as one of the great names in racing.