Monday, February 13, 2017

Micro Machines: a lack of momentum

I have played a lot of Micro Machines in the past, mainly on the Mega Drive, and mainly with friends.  I did complete the single-player games in both MM and MM2, but they weren't too tricky when compared to trying to keep ahead of Kieron and John.  Revisiting them on emulators reveals them to still be tightly controlled, fun games.

This isn't a blog post about them.


The NES game isn't as pretty, obviously, but the graphics are functional and clear.  It's obvious which car (or other vehicle) is yours, and the sprites are well designed to help you with navigating.  It felt that there were fewer directions than the Mega Drive game, but I'm not sure if that was actually the case.


But it does feel more clunky, and there's a definite lag in controls - and that's not due to playing on an emulator, unless it's very specific to one game.  The cars have the wrong momentum, they don't turn as quickly, and collisions are more punishing.


The difference in handling is most evident on the time trial stages, which I found the most difficult.  The time constraints were pretty tough and it took me a few tries to succeed.  Nothing was too difficult though, and I completed about half the trophy cabinet before getting a bit frustrated by how different it felt to the Mega Drive games.  I think I'd prefer to play them instead.

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