Dragster
| Developer: Activision | Publisher: Activision |
| Release Date: N/A | Also On: None |
The thrill of the race. Two cars and a quarter mile track. Yep, drag racing is one of the most popular forms of racing to be found today. It is this particular thrill that Activision sought to reproduce on the Atari 2600 with Dragster. Although Dragster is hardly the most complex game in the world, is it one that should be owned by the Atari 2600 gamer? Read on to find out.
The concept of Dragster is simple. You have a car. Your objective is to get your car from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen as fast as possible. Officially, Dragster is supposed to be a two-player only game, but, for the sake of just trying to beat your best time, it can be played with only one player. In order to make your car move, you must accelerate, and in the process of doing so, you must shift gears. Those two maneuvers are all that are necessary in this game.
Like in most racing games on the Atari 2600, you accelerate by hitting the button. In order to switch gears, you hit left on the joystick. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, if you accelerate too far without switching gears, you'll blow your engine, but if you switch gears too soon, you'll blow your engine. That means that in order to make the best times without blowing your engine you'll have very short windows of time in which to switch gears. So the game, while simple, is also difficult. But that's a good thing. The controls are such that the game is easy to learn, but hard to master.
Aesthetically, Dragster really isn't much. The car pixels are all done in black, and the background is done in a more tan color. The color scheme isn't the most impressive in the world, but it certainly gets the job done. Like most Atari 2600 games, there isn't music, but the noise of the cars accelerating is done as accurately as can be expected of an Atari 2600 game, and the sound of an engine blowing is done quite well. The one other sound effect, that of the countdown to the start of a race, is also decent.
As I said, Dragster is officially supposed to be a two-player only game, but, for the sake of beating your best time, it can be played one-player as well with the second car just sitting on the bottom doing nothing. Even with the challenge of beating your best time, though, this game will only last so long before you become sick of it. Add to that the fact that there are other, better, racing games to be had on the Atari 2600 and there is no logical conclusion to be reached but that Dragster would be difficult to recommend for most people. For the hardcore drag racing fan who is also an Atari 2600 fan, though, this game might provide a couple hours worth of entertainment.
| Graphics: | 6 |
| Sound: | 7 |
| Gameplay: | 6 |
| Creativity: | 6 |
| Replay Value/Game Length: | 4 |
| Final: | 5.9 |
| Written by Martin | Review Guide |
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