Tranz Am

The Good
Trans Am is a very open game. You are in control of a red car. You can cruise around the USA looking for the eight great cups. This sounds more than it is because it doesn’t take you more than a minute to drive from one end of the USA to the other. You have a small map on the screen that shows you your position and also shows a tiny dot whenever you come close to a cup, a petrol station or a black car chasing you. The black cars that chase you around add a bit of excitement to the game. They have a rudimentary AI built in and can attack you from the sides even if you drive as fast as you can. When two cars are chasing your car you can drive slow or fast and do tight turns to shake the cars of you. It is also fun to let them chase you when you drive towards a tree and then at the last second do a sharp turn so the car chasing you crashes into the tree. The best part about Trans Am is that it actually seems to be perfectly realistic to be able to finish it. We never made it that far though, at the height of its popularity at our house we got seven out of the eight cups.

The Bad
It takes some practice before you master the art of shaking of cars chasing you and it’s sometimes irritating that you have to be constantly looking for gas all the time.

The Bottom Line
Out of all of Ultimate Play the Game’s legendary first batches of games for the Spectrum, Trans Am always seems to get the least respect. In my view it is at least as good as Jetpac. As a top down racer it isn’t perfect because there are no tracks to race on, as a racing game and adventure it’s excellent.