Road Rash
I remember in the 16-bit days when the old Electronic Arts logo used to come up on the screen, it meant something really special was coming. The Sega cartridges even had this little yellow tab on them to differentiate them from the rest. Road Rash, for those who never played it, was a motorcycle racing game for the Sega Genesis which played like most racing games of the time. The road was a scrolling background, and your bike controls allowed you to basically move side-to-side as the road curved one way or another. Road Rash's twist was that as you made your way through the pack of other bikers, you had the opportunity to punch or kick them, ideally knocking them off their bike. There were cops and cows and cars, sand and oil and water, amongst other obstacles.
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| Man, I never realised how dated those bikes are now.. |
But what made Road Rash really special was my dad's enthusiasm for this game. Road Rash meant father-son-son bonding time. It's not like we didn't do other things together, other things we both enjoyed. But he was always over-the-top to bust this out on the weekend for the three of us to compete. I think for him it was good to have a game he could beat us at. I guess there's nothing more satisfying than knocking your smirking son off his bike with a club at 120mph. (For real, this wouldn't come about until split screen on Road Rash II.)
I haven't played this game for a very long time. I'll be sure to bust it out soon though. A lot of my old Sega games I've repurchased in either various Sega Collections or emulated virtual consoles for newer systems. So I haven't hooked up the Genesis for a while now and it's quite overdue. For fans of Road Rash, there was a successfully funded Kickstarter for a game called Road Redemption which plans on being a spiritual successor. This will hopefully be released this fall.
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