Micro Machines (Amiga)

Developer:

Codemasters

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Release Date:

1993 (Amiga)

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Systems:

Amiga, NES, SNES, SMS, SMD, GG, CD-i, GB, GBC, DOS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing classic overhead racing game Micro Machines! It looks like it's called MicroMachines, but there is apparently a tiny imperceptible space between the words.

It seems a bit redundant to tell you it's a racing game seeing as I've already written up there that it's by Codemasters, but this was from way back in their early days when they were still allowed to dream of other genres. The title Micro Machines also seems like a bit of a giveaway, but I bet they could've found a way to turn it into a platformer if they'd wanted to. It wouldn't have been the first car platformer I've played.

Though hang on, is this actually the first Codemasters developed game I've played for Super Adventures? It doesn't seem likely, but the only other Codemasters game I can think of is Fantasy World Dizzy and that was developed by the Oliver Twins. Wow, 10 years and there's still veteran AAA developers I haven't played anything by. Though they were more of a B game dev before this came out.

My gimmick this year is that I'm only playing games that I've found on top ten lists, and Micro Machines was #6 in 1995s Amiga Power All-Time Top 100 list. Weirdly it started off down at #17 the year before but I guess it grew on them. The game started life on the NES a couple of years earlier, in 1991, but Codemasters didn't exactly have a licence from Nintendo, so they teamed up with Camerica to come up with sneaky ways to get around the lock out chip with their unlicensed cartridges. My favourite is the pass-through cart that comes with a handle to get it back out of your NES, because it's so distinctive looking. No handles on the Amiga disks though, sadly.

The NES game didn't go through quality assurance either, which made things a bit awkward when they found a bug after they'd started producing ROM chips. I don't know how many console games got a hardware patch, but this is apparently one of them as they stuck a device inside to correct the code. No chips soldered onto the Amiga disks though, sadly.

In fact the Amiga game's been a real let down so far and I haven't even turned it on yet.

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The first thing the game asked me to do was to choose between ONE PLAYER or TWO PLAYER, and I must have gotten the answer right because it let me carry on to this screen.

I have to apologise for the inauthenticity of this GIF, by the way. The "SELECT YOUR GAMETYPE" text flashes and it was driving me mad so I edited it to make it stop. That's also inauthentic indecision with the weird hand cursor, as I know exactly what I want to pick. Head to Head mode is basically the two player mode, except with an AI opponent, so I'm going to go with Challenge mode.

Now I have to choose my driver from this group of, uh... archetypes.

The artist tried to represent kids from all over the world to be as inclusive as possible. Then he went the extra mile by throwing the Fonz in as well. No Violet Berlin from the TV show Bad Influence though, she's in the sequel.

I feel like I should be saying something about Chen... and how he's totally ripping off Dennis the Menace (UK edition). I suppose he might just be copying Freddy Krueger.

The typical cartoon face is standing for Caucasian here and they've caricatured the characters up a bit so you can tell they're meant to be different ethnicities. You can see the same thing happening in anime, where Japanese characters get the 'default' face and Westerners have more exaggerated features. I'm not Asian so I don't want to assume Chen looks like an offensive stereotype to anyone but my instinct is that they maybe could've dialled the caricature back a little in his case.

I decided to go with Spider and that's the last choice the game's letting me make. I don't get to change my name, what car I'm in, how many laps I'm racing, what track I'm on, the weather conditions... in fact you never get to pick anything, no matter what mode you're playing. The developers wanted it to be the kind of game where you just turn it on and start playing, like an arcade game, so it's always the same.

Hey where'd the music go? Is there no music in races? That's a bit of a shame, they could've at least made that an option! This isn't a problem unique to the Amiga port by the way, as there's no music in the original NES version either.

Sorry for this annoying looping GIF, I just wanted to show how the cars appear from liquid metal in very much the same way that the toys themselves don't. Except we're actually in powerboats for this first race and it's not a real race at all. This is just for qualifying, which means the other drivers are so slow that I don't even have to try.

Anyway I drove around in a circle and won, then the game let me pick three competitors for the first actual race. Each character has their own skill level and personality, at least that what I've read. I don't remember them acting any differently. The choice of character definitely doesn't change what cars I'll be against, as the car depends on the track and we're all given the same one.

For race one we're driving jeeps and it's time for breakfast.

RACE 1: THE BREAKFAST BENDS

Turns out that jeeps have got a pretty decent amount of grip. The GIF shows how precise the steering can be as well. My car's not snapping to diagonals here, it's just really easy to get it pointed in the right direction.

The unique selling point of Micro Machines is that you're driving tiny cars around familiar locations, and I'm totally sold on that part. I love that I'm driving on a track made of Cheerios, swerving around waffles and dodging baked beans. Well actually dodging beans is kind of pain because you've barely got any room to see them coming. All they do is slow you down, but when everyone else dodges them and you don't, that's a problem. Also I think they're actually supposed to be drops of honey or syrup or something.

Fortunately you can go off road and blaze your own trail, the game doesn't care. Well, unless you skip over an bit of scenery like an orange, then you'll explode when you rejoin the track. So I try to avoid that.

Three laps and it was over. The champion of breakfasts was decided, and it was me! Sorry Chen, if you wanted to win then maybe you shouldn't have been really bad at this.

RACE 2: DESKTOP DROPOFF

Now we're racing on school desks! I should maybe check to see if the artist has been consistent with the scale of all these pencils and notepads lying around... but I don't want to.

Though the different ports of the game have different graphics to suit their hardware, so I'm curious now if the writing on the notepad changes at all.

Here's some composited images of from the Mega Drive version (left) and the SNES version (right) that I put together from some screenshots. I stuck the HUD back on afterwards you can compare that as well, but the car never strays from the centre of the screen like this in the single player Challenge mode.

The Mega Drive version looks pretty much the same as the Amiga game except for having more shades on the cars, though it does have a slightly narrower screen. The SNES version has an even smaller screen, but adds some extra shades to the background. Either way, the notepad is basically the same. BORING!

Here's what the notepad looks like on the NES and Game Boy versions. The NES is the original game that all the others are based on, but I guess limited memory meant limited writing, so this is all you get here. Meanwhile the Game Boy version has a secret code... maybe. I haven't actually got a clue what it means.

The Game Boy game has the tiniest screen, but it does have one unique feature: it flashes up "NEW Best" when you beat a lap time. Well, okay that appears on the Game Boy Color version too, but you'd expect that as it's pretty much the same port except with colours.

Here's the CD-i and DOS versions, which each have unique notepads, despite the fact that the PC game is basically using the Mega Drive art it seems. You've got Kilroy, a flower, and another mysterious number on the CD-i version and actual jokes on the DOS notepad! Trouble is that the screen's so inexplicably tiny that it's hard to ever see them.

The game was also ported to the Master System and Game Gear, but they didn't both to put anything on their notepads, so I'm only including them here for the sake of completeness.

The Game Gear screen is absolutely tiny, but it compensates by putting the car further back. These are actual screenshots this time, so you can see how similar the visibility is. The real problem with these two versions is that the driving's just not as good (in my opinion).

The difficulty's really jumped up a bit on this race, as it's throwing ridiculously narrow gaps at me with next to zero warning. Also the car's skidding all over the place compared to the jeeps and it's easy to go a bit wider than you planned around the turns.

Also that bit with the rulers across the desks is a bastard. Even if you get the car onto them and you're facing the right direction...

... oops, turns out that one of the lanes is blocked off. Even if you notice in time you're going to swerve right off the bridge trying to dodge it! The driving controls are actually very good in this, but they have their limits.

Oh by the way, I should mention something here. Most versions of Micro Machines have parallax scrolling on the floor, but the Amiga version doesn't. It's not a huge shock considering that Amigas aren't really built for it, though I was a bit surprised to see it working on the NES.

RACE 3: OIL CAN ALLEY

Looks like this race takes place on a garage floor maybe. I haven't really got much else to say about it really, so I'm going to talk about the Philips CD-i port for a bit instead.

I don't think I've ever played a CD-i game for Super Adventures before, not even to compare all the different versions of something, so I was a bit surprised at how massive my screenshots are, relatively speaking. The CD-i has a minimum resolution of 384×280, and that's a lot bigger than your average Mega Drive game (320x224) or SNES game (256×224).

But I was mostly surprised by this:

Philips CD-i version

The CD-i version has a bit of a video clip at the start of each race! That means you can actually tell what these cars are meant to look like.

Overall the CD-i port actually looks pretty great I reckon, plus it has another surprise feature: in-game CD quality music! Sure the rock soundtrack is kind of cheesy, but I'm sucker for guitar riffs so it works for me. In fact it almost makes up for the lack of sound effects. But the CD-i version's not done yet, as it has one more surprise: it's a bit slow. In fact it's apparently notorious for it.

Plus it doesn't do the parallax on the floor either.

RUFFTRUX TIMETRIALS

Anyway I won the race and the game's given me a bonus race for three victories in a row! All I have to do is beat the clock and I get an extra life. Also I've just learned that I have lives.

If you get yourself lined up just right on his bit you can drive right over these puddles at full speed without falling in and getting reset. I screwed it up though and drove straight into the water, so that's cost me time. But I think I've still got a chance.

Well, fuck.

I wasted the rest of my time trying to slowly navigate this narrow path (it didn't help that I kept falling in and getting reset), so that was a giant failure. No extra life for me.

Huh, I lost the time trial and that means Emilio is knocked out?

This is completely unfair and I'm totally okay with it.

I got asked to pick a new challenger, so I selected Cherry to take Emilio's place. Though I suppose Emilio's place was that slot in the character select bar, and we've set up an 'Out of Game' barrier there to make absolutely sure he can't sneak back in.

RACE 4: SANDY STRAIGHTS

Now we're out on the beach!

Micro Machines actually started life as California Buggy Boys, a game about a regular normal-sized buggy racing across a beach and jumping over dunes. But the plan changed when they got the Micro Machines licence and had to come up with new artwork. I wonder if some of the beach art got recycled for this though. Either way, this is the closest the game comes to the original design.

This level's got an unusual feature: the track disappears sometimes! Fortunately it's on a straight this time, but if a later beach track pulls this on a corner I'm going to be in trouble.

RACE 5: OATMEAL IN OVER DRIVE

I'm back on the breakfast table, my first repeat location. Same table, entirely different track.

I love the art on this cereal box, so I decided to stitch some shots together to see the whole thing at once and compare it to one in the NES original. Doesn't quite have the same character to it in the NES game. Also I've just noticed that my car's sitting on his spoon. Totally unintentional.

If you miss the ramp here you have to back up a bit and try again. If you try driving around the box you explode. Then you have to try again.

Damn, I swerved to avoid the drops of honey but I swerved too far and went flying off the table. Again.

That was my last chance to escape last place and grab a shocking last-minute victory. It's over, I've failed. On the plus side, now I finally get to see what happens if you lose.

Oh no, I lost a life! Not because I drove off the track and exploded, but because I lost the race.

I managed it on my next try though.

RACE 6: THE CUE BALL CIRCUIT

Oh cool, the game still has some new locations to show me. But man, look what this track's asking me to do here! Uh, I suppose you can't actually tell from the screenshot, so I'll have to use words.

Okay, I'm on the outside of a pool table right now, and I'm supposed to make a sudden right turn here and drive onto this card. With basically zero warning, as usual. But the thing about pool tables, is that they're very flat and very green and don't have a lot of landmarks to work from, so even if you know in advance that the turn's coming up it's a bastard to get the timing right.

Hang on, I'll just show you. And for the sake of variety (and a smaller GIF filesize), I'll show you on the NES game for a change.

NES version

You see what it's like! It's not just the card that trips me up, any corner on this table is a death trap coming out of nowhere. I have to take my finger off the accelerator and slow down when I think I'm getting close, so I don't skid right off the edge. If I turn a moment too soon I go flying down the pocket instead.

Look at that beautiful parallax effect though. Or maybe don't look at it if it's messing with your eyes. I also like the Wile E. Coyote smoke ring when the falling car finally reaches the tiles.

I love how you drop into the pocket to teleport, though I could do without repeatedly slamming into balls. Look at that one sitting on the track outside the pocket, you ain't going to dodge that without practice. Even knowing it's coming isn't enough as it takes some really precise positioning to get your car in line for the gap (that I screwed up).

Oh by the way, here's a fun fact about Pool that I've learned from playing Micro Machines: most of the balls in the game have the number '5'.

Anyway that's Chen out of the game now, and I've chosen Anne to be the new player four. She seems pretty hyped to get racing.

I know this isn't the most interesting screenshot, I'm really just giving you a break from the animated GIFs.

RACE 7: HANDYMANS CURVE

I'm back in the garage zone and I've been reunited with an old enemy: 'sticky bits on the track that slow you down'. They're working together with another of my foes, 'obstacles on either side so you have to drive straight down the middle', to make sure that even if I dodge the glue I'm still getting punished.

There's no power ups in Micro Machines by the way. You can't get a speed boost or a blue shell to fire at your opponents, or anything like that. There's only things to slow you down.

Incidentally, look a how the purple car is able to outrun me here. There's something very weird going on with the speed of cars in this, and I'm not just talking about the rubber banding catch-up mechanic. I still won the race though!

RUFFTRUX TIMETRIALS 2

Another run of victories has earned me another chance to claim an extra life in a time trial challenge! But I got stuck in the weeds and ran out of time. I thought I could just drive over the things at first, but nope. And getting back out of a hazard after getting stuck in between them like this takes time I don't got.

RACE 8: BERMUDA BATHTUB

This level, on the other hand, is piss easy. Now that I know about the rubber duck and the whirlpool I'm basically doing clean laps and I haven't seen another boat since the second corner.

(This was originally a screenshot of the whirlpool but then I came to my senses and realised I can't mention a duck and then not show the duck. That's like a basic rule of storytelling.)

RACE 9: SAHARA SANDPIT

Hey it's doing the narrow bridge trick again, and gets even funnier each time. I'm the red car on the left by the way.

Turns out I only needed to get two wheels on it though, so I actually made it across here. Don't worry, I found another way to lose the race, so that's another one of my lives gone.

I made it in the end though and Jethro became the next of my opponents to fall, so I chose Bonnie to take his place. Three drivers down, seven to go.

I'm building up a decent collection of vehicles now in my official Micro Machines display case, each one from a race I've beaten. Well except for the helicopter, that's from the race I'm about to do. Funny how they didn't draw a new picture with both rotor blades visible for when it's parked. They just used a frame from an animation.

You know, on closer examination I'm not sure this is actually an official case, as it's got fewer slots than the ones I've found in a Google search. That's probably for the best though, as I don't need the game to be any longer! I've already done 9 races and it seems like there's 15 left to go. There's never any passwords or options to save, so it's a gruelling test of endurance. (I've been playing for about 30 minutes so far).

RACE 10: THE POTTED PASSAGE

Damn, I was half a helicopter away from finishing in second place! (I'm the red one again).

I bet if I'd made it to second I could've continued through to the next race, but third place just doesn't cut it I'm afraid and I was already on my last life. That's it, game over.

It's a relief to be honest, though I'm not quite done with the game yet, as I have to show off 'Head to Head' mode.

Seems like Head to Head features the same cars and tracks in the same order, but there's big difference in gameplay: there's only two cars and if one gets far enough ahead for the other to fall off screen, they gain a light. Whoever has the most lights at the end of the race wins, and if they get all the lights the race ends right there.

This is a pretty good demonstration of the two player mode as well as it works the exact same way, except with two people swearing at the TV screen.

The thing is, there's a pretty big problem with this mode, and that's that it's bloody terrible.

At least it's terrible when I play it. Just Bonus!, Bonus!, Bonus! over and over, as we take turns making the tiniest mistake and getting dropped off the screen.

The two player Head to Head mode gets a lot of praise, as it's what everyone played the game for, but I really don't like it at all. The worst part of it is that it amplifies the biggest problem the game has, which is you barely get any time to react to what's coming up. In Head to Head the lead car is right up against the edge of the screen, reducing the reaction time to 'slim' to 'zero'. You could say that this is balancing the game so that the character in front has a harder challenge, but I'd rather not have to wear a blindfold when I'm winning.

Plus it's complicated by the fact that if you're off the track when the other player falls off the screen, you're the one that loses... sometimes. Not all the time, just sometimes.

Here's a shot of the actual two player mode just so you don't have an animated GIF annoying you at the top of your screen while you're reading.

I thought that Tournament mode might let you bring more players in to race by letting you pass the controllers around, but nope it's still just two player. They've actually mixed the track order up though, so it's choppers in the third race. So that's different I suppose.


CONCLUSION

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The thing you've got to understand about Micro Machines, is that you race tiny cars across tables! It's such a great concept that it's amazing that it took until the 90s before someone came up with the idea and they were basically pushed into it by a toy licence.

But the setting doesn't matter if the driving's bad, so it's good that they got that right as well. The controls definitely weren't a problem for me, the cars handle fine and it's easy to get them lined up with whatever angle the track's at. I played a bit of Micro Machines 2 afterwards to compare and it just made me appreciate that Micro Machines 1 steering even more. Neither game has a difficulty select, but if you want hard mode, play the sequel instead, because bloody hell.

Even during the times when my tires lost their grip and the car went flying off a desk again, I always felt like it was my fault and not the game's. Well okay maybe we share the blame, because the trouble with Micro Machines is that distance you can see isn't a great match for the speed the cars go. I've read that the fun here comes from learning the tracks, and I think that's true because you have to memorise them to have any hope of winning. Either that or become precognitive, because that's the only way you'll see some of the turns and obstacles coming. The CD-i port does give you more time to react, 'cause it's so slow, but it's not really as fun without the speed so I can't say I'd recommend that version.

Some Sprint games (like Sprint, for instance) give you a zoomed out view of the whole track at once, but they don't have any feeling of speed, so that's not necessarily the solution here. What Micro Machine needs I reckon is a minimap in the corner, giving you an overview of the track. Or maybe it just needs a player that loves memorising levels a lot more than I do. Actually it needs two players, as whenever people talk about the game, they're not sharing fond memories of the single player mode. Though whatever mode I played there didn't seem to be any way to choose tracks or cars, so it's apparently always going to be the same repetitive routine. If you want to practice race 24 you've got to win races 1-23 first.

Also it doesn't matter what version you play, it's always going to have the sophistication of a NES game, because that's what they're all based on. Not that it's a bad thing, I'm just pointing out that all the 16 bit systems really add to the experience is more colours. Though the different ports must have different handling or AI, as sometimes I struggled on a track in one version and then found it easy on another, or vice versa. I could never really pin down what had changed, except that the driving on the Master System and Game Gear felt like a real step down and I was skidding all over the place on the Game Boy and SNES. I definitely found it a lot easier to win extra lives on the NES game.

Made it with 200 milliseconds to spare!

The soundtrack is different on the different versions, but I was surprised that the CD-i port's the only one to give you music during races. I was also surprised when I heard the music on the Amiga port as I didn't recognise it at all. Not even slightly and it's definitely the version I used to play as a kid. I guess it's just not memorable. Though I did recognise the Smoke on the Water-influenced track in the NES game (I recognised it as being Smoke on the Water).

If you want four player your only option is the SNES version, otherwise I'd suggest playing it on whatever system you like more or you're most nostalgic about. Except maybe the CD-i, Master System and Game Gear ports. Also the screen on the Game Boy ports is too small.

Anyway, the good news for fans of Micro Machines is that the game might be exactly as good as you remember it being, because to be honest I didn't like playing it much even at time. I was always fascinated by the premise and it's not like I can think of any other overhead racers I like more than it, but when I do well in a race I get bored and when I do badly I get frustrated. And I don't like the two player either.

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Only you can save this article from ending on a downer by telling me how much you love Micro Machines in the comments box below! Or you can tell everyone why you don't like it, or reveal that you've never actually played it at all. Either way it's all good.

You can also take a guess at what the next game will be. It'll be from someone's top 10 list, so chance are you'll have heard of it. Unless I found it on Unpopular Gamer's 'Top 10 Games No One's Ever Heard Of' list.