WEC Le Mans (Commodore 64)

WEC Le Mans is a racing game published by Konami in 1986 in the arcades. As the title suggests, the game is based on the famous Le Mans 24 race. Imagine Software managed to get the license for the game and produced several ports to the 8-bit home computers in 1988. While the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions of WEC Le Mans were well received, the Commodore 64 version by Coreland didn't fare very well.

Why the Commodore 64 Version Sucks

 * 1) The road doesn't switch from side to side, but just sits in the middle.
 * 2) Very stiff handling, as if the car is driving on ice.
 * 3) The car always turns at the same speed, regardless of how fast it's driving.
 * 4) There are no warnings to tell if a corner or a rival car is coming up due to the screwed up perspective.
 * 5) Annoying sound effects.
 * 6) Sometimes, when you crash the car, another race car may come and immediately ram into you, making you crash again.
 * 7) The game occasionally has graphical glitches, like the player car's sprite glitching out or white stars appearing on the road.
 * 8) You don't really get the same sense of speed you would normally get from the arcade original or the other versions.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The graphics are pretty decent for C64 standards.
 * 2) Good title music.

Reception
While the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions of WEC Le Mans received mainly positive reviews, the critics were less kind to the C64 version, with a score of 40% from Zzap!64 (later reduced to 20% when the game was re-released as a budget title), and 31% from Commodore User.

For the longest time, Stuart Ashen thought that WEC Le Mans was the worst racing game ever released on the Commodore 64 until he played the C64 version of Cisco Heat and considered that game to be even worse.

Videos
Z5KeS-ssyiQ