Video games - Road Rash

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	Video games - Road Rash

::For the common abrasion injury caused by high-speed contact with rough pavement, see road rash.

Road Rash is the name of a motorcycle-racing video game series by Electronic Arts, in which the player participates in violent illegal street races. The game was originally written for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, but was ported to several other systems. Six versions of the game were released from 1991 to 1999, although a 2004 licenced port for the Game Boy Advance exists. Road Rash was the first racing game to allow actual combat between racers.

Presented in a third-person view similar to Hang-On
(although bike and rider are proportionately smaller), the player competes in road races, and must finish in the top 3 places in every race in order to proceed to the next level. As levels progress, the opponents ride faster and fight harder and the tracks are longer and more dangerous. Placing in each race gives a certain amount of money which increases considerably in each level. This money allows the player to buy faster bikes which are needed to stay competitive. The game is over either if the player is arrested (a policeman knocks the player off their bike or the player is either stopped or on foot near a policeman) and the player can't pay the fine, or if the bike suffers more damage than it can take and is wrecked.

Aside from the high speed, big-air and spectacular crashes, what separated Road Rash from other racing games was its combat element. The player could fight other bikers with a variety of handweapons. The player would initially start off with just his hands and feet, but if the gamer timed a punch right, they could grab a weapon from another rider. The weapons themselves ranged from clubs, crowbars, nunchakus, cattle prods and even police batons. Fights between riders to knock each other off the bike would often go on at high speeds through traffic, pedestrians and roadside obstacles, with the victor gaining place and the loser sustaining bike damage and losing time.

The motorcycle police officers have dual antagonistic roles. They fight the player as another opponent (who is generally tougher), and they also serve as gameplay enforcers by policing the back of the pack and culling players who fall too far behind or choose to explore the world rather than race in it. The stakes are higher for losing a fight with a police officer than for losing to another player: Losing a fight with an officer would cause the player to be fined and "busted" and the race would end. If the player had insufficient funds to pay the fine, the game would be over.

Players could chose between 3 categories of motorcycles in each price level: Sport/GT bikes, Race replicas and Cruisers. The Sport/GT bikes were designed after European Grand Touring bikes- they handled well, were of moderate weight and had moderate power. Race Replicas were the Japanese style super bikes- Very quick, very light. The cruisers are American style- a little heavy, don't turn too good but lots of straight line power. The 32-bit versions introduced a 4th type called a Rat bike which was a stripped down frankenstein-style bike which was nimble and had a lot of durability. Select bikes at the higher levels had N₂O boosts.

In the initial versions each race locale consisted of a single road. As the player progressed through the levels the finish line would be placed farther down the road. When the technology moved to a single interlocked road network the race routes were pieced together from branching road segments. The four corners of the world had distinctly different geographic features. Once past the first level the races would be between or through different locales.

The initial 3 versions of the game were based upon individual racers against individual AI opponents. The concept of gangs in the 4th and later versions introduced alliances amongst the AI. Depending upon each gangs tolerance the opponents in the same gang would only have moderate aggressiveness towards the player whereas an opposing gang member would have a high degree of aggressiveness. Regardless of which gang, attacking an AI opponent increases their aggressiveness towards the player and each character had different tolerances and decay rates of aggression. As the series evolved combat became a more integral part of the game. It was possible to win a race without landing a blow in the early versions but the AI's persistence and latent aggressiveness in the later versions made this impossible. In most versions of the game, if knocked off the bike, it was possible for the player to run to the finish line and complete (or even win) the race.

The 32-bit versions of the game featured cutscenes professionally filmed in San Francisco and Los Altos Hills that were notable for a wry sense of humor. For example, if the player was arrested, then the game would show a brief movie clip of a motorcyclist being handcuffed to a police officer's motorcycle (which would then start moving), or a clip of the arrestee being placed in the trunk of a police cruiser. The actors were both professional stuntmen and the games designers and featured the company bike- a red Ducati which is still on display at EA headquarters. The 16-bit versions featured animations as cut scenes. The possible game triggers for cut scenes in all the versions are: race win, level progression, game win, wreck and busted.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Road Rash ]

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Video games - Road Rash

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