Crazy Cars

Crazy Cars is a 1988 racing game developed and published by Titus France for all the major computer formats of the time, as well as the MSX and MS-DOS. It is the first game in the Crazy Cars franchise.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) For some reason, the scenery has ugly color combinations in the 16-bit versions, like green and blue, or orange and pink.
 * 2) There's no music in the game besides a terrible sampled rock tune in the Amiga and DOS versions.
 * 3) The Atari ST and DOS versions have very narrow roads, making it impossible to go around the other cars that come in your way.
 * 4) Similar to the C64 version of WEC Le Mans, you can sometimes get hit by cars from behind that you couldn't see coming, and there's no rearview mirror.
 * 5) The DOS version runs way too fast, even on the hardware of its time, and has the worst graphics of all the versions, being only presented in CGA, at a time when EGA graphics started to become more common in DOS games.
 * 6) The handling is terrible in the Atari ST and DOS versions. Because of that and the above issues, these versions are virtually unplayable.
 * 7) The cars in the 8-bit versions all have the same handling.
 * 8) The whole game feels rushed and unfinished, especially in the 8-bit versions, as the roads feel empty with cars occasionally passing by.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The handling is pretty decent in the Amiga and 8-bit versions and gives a good sense of speed, especially the former version, as each car has different handling characteristics.
 * 2) The graphics are pretty decent in all versions, with the exception of the DOS version.
 * 3) The timer is very generous in the 8-bit versions.

Reception
Crazy Cars received mixed reviews from the magazines of the time. The Amiga version is the one that received the most positive reviews, with a 78% score from The Games Machine, and a 70% score from Amiga User International and Commodore User, while the other versions didn't receive the same level of praise. Your Sinclair ranked the ZX Spectrum version at 50%, stating "The only thing crazy about this game is the price, as it offers nothing new, and that which it does offer is available elsewhere, better and cheaper." ACE ranked the C64 version at 44%, and ST Action rated the Atari ST version 36%, with the latter saying that the game "is an exercise in pretty graphics, nothing more. If Titus manage to make any money with this game they will owe it all to the packaging designer." The Games Machine, who rated the Amiga version of Crazy Cars at 78%, gave the MSX version a 29% score, saying it "looks and sounds no better than a poor Z80 road-racing game."

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