As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #32, January 2007.

Over two years ago in my first RTM article I took a look at Super Sprint, which is still to this day one of my favorite arcade to NES conversions.  A very similar game, released almost five years later, is Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat.  The successor to Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road released two years earlier, Indy Heat replaced off road trucks with high speed Indy cars.  The result is a game that comes back to the genre's roots, fast and furious open wheel racing, while enhancing the overall experience with more realism.  While Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat would never become as popular as Super Off Road, it was always the game I preferred to play between the two.  Up to three drivers compete at fourteen different circuits with a total of five cars on the track at all times.  Non player cars are drones and the yellow car is a force to be reckoned with, as it's driven by Danny Sullivan and has some decent artificial intelligence.  At the start of the game each player enters their initials and selects a driver they would like to play as.  This information is retained for the game's ranking system so it's possible to build your stats and lap records over many visits to an arcade.  After each race prize money is awarded that can be used to purchase upgrades for your car and team.  A year after the arcade release an NES version began to appear on store shelves, developed by Rare and published by Tradewest.

The NES version of Indy Heat was released around the same time as Nintendo's NES Four Score and NES Satellite four player adapters.  Both these devices allowed up to four NES control pads to be connected to the control deck at the same time for simultaneous four player game play.  To take maximum advantage of this, the NES version of Indy Heat supports four players over the arcade original's three.  Non player cars are still cycled in as drones and Danny Sullivan is still at the wheel of the yellow car.  Steering controls are remapped to left and right on the directional pad and control is silky smooth.  The A Button controls acceleration, lifting off of it applies the brakes.  The B Button is used to give your car a turbo boost granted that you have turbos remaining.  Although the NES version features player registration just like in the arcade, this information is not retained once the power is turned off or the NES is reset.

Without a doubt the largest obstacle a port of this game has to overcome is graphic detail.  The arcade version of Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat as the most lavishly detailed and colorful non laserdisc game that Leland ever manufactured.  While their layouts may have been slightly different, the circuits really did suit their real-life counterparts properly in terms of location theming.  One can tell a lot of care went into the graphic design of each venue to attempt to capture as much of the grand prix atmosphere as possible.  There is no possible way this level of detail could have been translated onto the NES hardware, so it shouldn't be expected.  What can be expected, and is delivered, is a recreation of the same over all circuit layout.  Sure it's not as detailed but most of the key visual elements of each circuit and the surrounding areas are present in the NES version.  It looks a little bare bones but all the important stuff is there.  Most of the circuits from the arcade make the transfer over to the NES but the ones that do are renamed.  For instance Vancouver is now Western Canada and Long Beach is now Southern California.  In all, there are eight different circuits in the NES version, six less than the arcade original, but the ones included offer a good balance of fun and challenge.

Prize money is accumulated in the same way as it was in the arcade and is spent on the same upgrades: Turbos (more turbo boost), Brakes (faster stopping when off the accelerator), Tires (quicker turning speed and less sliding), Crew (faster pit stops), MPG (improves fuel consumption for longer runs between pit stops), Engine (improved acceleration), and Danny's Choice (Danny Sullivan purchases the most even assortment of upgrades you can afford).  Sound effects are the same as they were in the arcade however the sparse speech that the arcade game featured is not present.  Music is about the same as well with lazy little audio tracks playing in the background throughout the game.

While it may not seem like a stellar conversion it does bring the core of the game into the home.  For this title to truly shine it needs to be played with four players.  Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat and Nintendo World Cup are the reasons I use my NES Four Score and NES Satellite.  It's very easy to spend more than a few hours with friends playing this game and I honestly enjoy it more than the arcade original for one simple reason.  In the arcade you could keep feeding the machine quarters to build a bankroll to purchase all the upgrades right from the start.  This is something that can't be done on the NES, so there's a lot more challenge in building up your stats properly and it adds a lot of strategy to the game.  Any fan of Super Sprint or Super Off Road would love this natural progression of this type of racing game, in the arcade or at home on the NES.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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