Turbo

Overview

Turbo (ターボ) is a 1981 arcade game developed by Sega. It is a racing game where the player drives a formula 1 car down a long road while avoiding other cars and obstacles. Turbo is often considered the first racing game to introduce a third-person perspective to the genre, something that is largely taken for granted now. A third-person perspective had earlier been achieved by Sega's Fonz in 1976, and a first-person perspective by Atari's Night Driver the same year, but the weak technology of the era meant that Fonz was monochrome and Night Driver could only produce white squares on a black background (hence the word "Night"). Turbo was revolutionary in that it could display colourful, detailed backgrounds, with sprite scaling, which gave the impression that the car was moving forwards. What is also notable is that Turbo offers changes of scenery, so the player can drive through cities, along the coast, through tunnels and through snow. Turbo would go on to inspire Namco's successful Pole Position arcade title, which in turn would help to popularise the genre. Pole Position is arguably a less advanced game, in terms of scale, as the scenery does not change. The gameplay is similar to Sega's earlier arcade title, Monaco GP. Like Monaco GP, its arcade cabinet displays the player's score and speed on separate LED displays, meaning that when the game is emulated, extra considerations must be taken. In MAME for example, there is an option to display these values on the left hand side of the main screen, but this would not have been present on real hardware. It's you and several other cars racing through a variety of landscapes in Turbo. From the starting line onward, you need to maneuver around and pass various cars in your way while racing towards the finish line. Some of the landscapes you'll travel through include city streets, long roads in the country, seaside highways and dark tunnels.

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