R.C. Pro-Am

The Good
The controls are really easy to understand, you tap the D-pad which makes your car steer in that direction, that is all you need to know. If you are used to modern games then this is probably going to sound odd because you don't have a 100% control over your car and you just shift between preset directions, but believe me it works a lot better then it sounds and I never missed my beloved joystick at all.

The game is really fast and has lots of variety, every track is different because they get longer, dirtier or just harder to drive on due to a lot of turns. While driving you must also pay attention to items that you need to pick up, puddles of water and other obstacles that slow you down and of course the boosters that send you flying forward. It's exactly the over the top fun that I like about racing games because if I wanted to drive realistically I'd go out and buy a car, but I want to play a game, so I play Mario Kart and R.C. Pro-Am.

I like the fact that you don't have to win in order to continue to the next track, as long as you don't finish last you can move on and even if you lose there are quite a few continues available for when you get unlucky. There are four cars on the track (one of which is you), so unless you finish last you will always be rewarded with a cup (gold for first, silver for second and bronze for third) which is a nice way to motivate players to get better. It's a bit sad that there aren't unlimited continues, but at least having some is a pretty good thing for NES game standards.

The Bad
The AI is a little bit too good and they avoid almost every hazard and pick up every booster and item they can get if you don't interfere with them. This also causes the problem that you could lost a match solely because you missed a single booster or didn't get to pick up one of the many items on the field, which is even more frustrating if that happens in the final round or when you're short on continues. Hitting the AI isn't quite easy either because they avoid collisions.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the best racing games ever which should be quite obvious because I usually hate racing games. Once you get used to the controls there is nothing stopping you from having a lot of fun on the thirty-something tracks although I heard that completing this game can be quite hard.

If you like funny racing games like Mario Kart, then you will most likely enjoy this game because it is just as fast and chaotic. If you want realism in your games then this is probably not the platform you should be looking at in the first place. Good luck trying to find this game, it's rather hard to spell the name right.