As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #7, December 2004.

To an NES gamer Tengen was synonymous with good quality ports of popular arcade games.  For as long as the readers can tolerate me I'm going to provide them with comparative reviews of NES titles released by Tengen.  Let's kick things off with one of my favorite Tengen NES ports, Super Sprint, but maybe it would be prudent to give just a tiny bit of information on who Tengen was.

Nintendo in all of its glory revived the home video game market to its previous luster by around 1985, and for the previous generation juggernaut Atari, there was still a good deal of money to be made in the home gaming market.  When Warner Communications sold the consumer side of Atari, Inc. to Jack Tramiel it resulted in Atari being split into two separate companies:  Atari Corp. and Atari Games.  Atari Corp. would continue to sell the redesigned 2600, 7800, and whatever other consumer products were still being warehoused, while Atari Games would begin new game development.  To avoid confusion with the consumer division, Atari Games would rebrand themselves as Tengen.  Much in the same way Atari meant "only having one liberty remaining" in the traditional Japanese game of Go, Tengen was the term for the center point of the Go board.  Tengen would develop games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, which was logical since the world was in love with Nintendo at the time.

However Nintendo's NES-era licensing agreement only allowed third party developers to release no more than five games per year and every title released must remain exclusive to the NES lineup for at least two years.  Tengen wanted cross-platform development rights but was unsuccessful in swaying Nintendo and eventually agreed to their terms.  However Tengen worked on bypassing the NES lockout circuitry that would allow their unlicensed games to run by reverse engineering the lockout chip and cracking its program code, a cunning piece of engineering strategy, that ended in failure.  Tengen then contacted the US copyright office requesting a copy of the lockout program for litigation against Nintendo, once the program code was theirs they created their own version of an NES lockout chip and the floodgates were opened on unlicensed Tengen NES development.  Nintendo wouldn't take this sitting down and sued Tengen for breach of contract, eventually winning.  Continual lawsuits over copyright issues eventually led to Tengen falling apart in the late 1990's however their games continue to be popular among NES gamers and collectors alike.  Now on with the first Tengen game review.

Synopsis:  Super Sprint is an NES port of the 1986 arcade game of the same name, which was the continuation of the classic Sprint series from the late 1970's.  Gameplay in Super Sprint revolves around indy-style racing from a bird's eye perspective.  No matter the number of human players there are always four cars in each four-lap race with player one controlling the yellow car and player two taking the wheel of the blue machine.  If there is only one player the blue car is computer controlled as well as the white and red cars, which are always CPU drones.  This is slightly different than the arcade version in which up to three people can play controlling a blue, red, or yellow car while a green car remains the permanent CPU drone.  As the race progresses the cars can pick up randomly appearing bonus flags and randomly appearing wrenches.  Picking up two wrenches (three in the arcade) allows you to upgrade either your car's top speed, acceleration, or traction.  Additionally you can trade your wrenches for 3000 bonus points, in the arcade version this option gives you 1500 bonus points, 500 for each wrench.  To progress to the next track you must finish in first place in a one player game or a human player must finish first in a two player game.  Even if you do not finish first you may continue (you lose your wrenches and points but keep performance upgrades) and try your hand at the same track again, you can continue twice and then it's game over.

Graphics:  Not bad at all, Tengen made a valiant effort to port over as much of the arcade version as possible.  The title screen is similar to its arcade counterpart using much the same artwork albeit dumbed down slightly to meet the NES hardware specs.  The cars rotate smoothly when turning and track obstacles such as oil slicks and the tornado are what you would expect of an 8-bit version of an arcade title of this era.  The green drone from the arcade version is replaced by a white drone but other than that everything is faithfully recreated keeping in mind the limitations of the NES color palette.

The screen that lets you select your starting track is nonexistent on the NES, which isn't a big deal since most people start on the easiest track in the arcade anyway.  Of the eight original arcade tracks five make the jump over to the NES along with two unique to the NES version for a grand total of seven.  The circuits continue to loop in order, adding cones after level 6 and barriers that raise and lower after level 13 as new hazards to deal with as the AI cars get faster and faster.  These additional road hazards are not present in the arcade version, which simply continues to loop through its eight circuits until game over.  The tracks from the arcade version that make their way to the NES are recreated for the most part with the exception of things like banked turns or jumps.  While the jump shortcut of one track remains in the NES version, the cars don't get airborne like they do in the arcade; they simply drive through and over the barrier.

The jump physics are also why my favorite track from the arcade version is not present on the NES, which would be the track with the large open jump in the center.  Additionally the complex track from the arcade is left behind, as is any track heavily dependent on the opening and closing barrier shortcuts.  (I've always called them accordion shortcuts)   To make up for the missing tracks the NES version features a figure eight type track as well as a twisty circuit with a large shortcut through the middle.  One of the tracks from the arcade version that featured an accordion shortcut makes its way to the NES however it is devoid of the shortcut all together.  While diving through the accordion shortcuts just before they slammed shut was one of the things that made the arcade version exciting and satisfying, one surprisingly doesn't lose much on the NES without them.  There are also a number of slight animation changes such as when your car explodes.  In the arcade version when your car explodes a recovery helicopter flies by and drops off a new one, this is not present in the NES version, probably due to graphical limitations.  Instead, when your car blows up the player is presented with a little red explosion and the replacement car appears right where the original was destroyed.  The bonus flags that randomly appear on the track fold open in the arcade version while in the NES version their point values just appear instantly, the wrenches remain the same yet are missing their shadowing detail on the NES.

Lastly the post race animation has been changed from showing all four cars to simply showing the winning car with a "Tengen Vision" signboard in the background.  The driver in the car turns and gives a thumbs up, very similar to what your driver does when you drop a coin in at the continue screen of the arcade version.  Also in the arcade version if the player was to come in fourth place he would be shown working on the wreckage of his car, if you lose on the NES version your car is simply shown at the "race again" and / or "game over" screen which also takes place in front of the "Tengen Vision" signboard.

Sound:  While the cars don't have the same deep wail they have in the arcade version, the NES engine sound is passable without becoming too annoying.  The sound effects from spinning out or picking up items are recreated well and overall the sound effects are pretty accurate to the arcade original.  However the little musical tunes that play during the winner's circle sequence have been replaced by the same music as the song that plays during the title screen.  In fact the only music in the NES version is what plays during the title sequence.  A small gripe at best but I've always enjoyed the music clips in the arcade version, even if the arcade version didn't have a title theme.

Play Control:  A steering wheel and an accelerator pedal controlled the arcade machines so the transition to a control pad and a button is a little different feeling but still manages to be easy to control.  While the finesse of spinning and catching the steering wheel to zoom around the track like Mario Andretti doesn't transfer over to the NES, after a couple minutes of adjusting to using the control pad you'll be cornering like a pro.  Control is super smooth and weaving around an obstacle and cutting off your rivals to take the lead quickly becomes just as entertaining as it was in the arcade.  Collision detection is pretty good although it is possible to get hung up with the AI drones every now and again as they attempt to stick to their path, but this was present in the arcade version as well.

Final Verdict:  Until the recently released arcade compilations on the next-gen systems this was simply the best arcade port of Super Sprint you could get for a home console.  It's still a great way to lose a couple hours with a friend and while arcade perfect home versions have been released since, the NES version of Super Sprint is still its own beast with its different tracks and road obstacles.  This was always my favorite Tengen NES title and nearly every weekend I had my mom rent it from the local video store until I had my own copy.  After all these years Super Sprint is still entertaining on the NES, I suppose that's due to it being a port of what was an entertaining arcade game to begin with.  However it took Tengen to bring it home on the NES and they did an excellent job.
 

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

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