Drivin' Force (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by Lemon Amiga.com
68Drivin' Force is a top class behind-view driving/racing game, originally created on the Amiga, by Jules Burt and Jon Law. The experience might remind you of Power Drift, and several other games. This is the final show of this series. Thank you everybody for tuning in, and see you all next time.
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7. 🔥 Eric Johnson 🔥
8. 🔥Bernhard Lukas 🔥
Production Notes:
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Captured: 27th Nov 2018 (25 races, 1080p at 50fps), and 30th October 2020
Narrated: 11th Feb 2021
Edited: 30th Oct 2020 and 11-13th Feb 2021, 1-4th March 2021
As this is one of the classic games I remember from back in the day, I wanted to end the series with this, and end on a high. The reason I played the whole 25 races in the league was due to a comment about the hidden bonus level I saw on the LA forum in 2018. As it turned out, the bonus level only appears after the Mini League, and Mini Knockout. So when I discovered this in 2020, I went back and recorded the end part of my league progress, and the jetski bonus stage. This was the final footage I recorded for this series, having recorded Chrome on the 1st of October, and before that, Fire and Ice OCS on August 3rd.
In the meantime, Jules Burt had contacted the LA forum, and related some good stories about those days. Recently I remembered this thread, and quoted parts of it in this review. Search 'Digital Magic' and you should find it.
I spent a long time editing this, cutting down the races, and lots of pre-editing work. I finished the review several times, only to add something extra and have to render it all again. These included the AVGN pop-up, the Map and Photo (its hard to find the perfect location by zoom in), and the clips of Outrun and Power Drift. I thought about slowing down those games, but in fact I downloaded the NTSC versions of both games, and played them both in NTSC. For Power Drift I didnt use second gear.
After that, I had a late entry to my supporters page - Kim Lemon! The video was already uploading when I got the message, so it was a last minute rush to add the extra name to the titles, render, and upload again. Kim is at Contributor level, so he should be higher up than Eric and Bernhard on the credits. I also upscaled several of the names on the end credits to make them look less blocky.
Bugs:
- I had endless sound issues with this review. The whole thing sounds muddy on my system. Plus my voice went hoarse during narration. I've had to crank up the volume on much of it.
- The review was automatically monetised by Youtube because it contains copyright music by Dr. Awesome. He gets all of the ad revenue, and I cant switch those ads off.
- There are a few banding glitches in the sky, especially on the more recent footage. This is a rendering bug and doesnt appear on the raw footage. I re-rendered at 14,000 kbps but it didnt solve the issue.
Danscore:
Like Chrome, this game will always hold a special place for me, and this is despite some pretty ropey graphics. The gameplay is straight forward, without having to worry about gears or even a speedo. All the corners can be taken at full speed, so there is no point in braking, or even slowing down all that much. A simple tap on the accelerator is enough to navigate the danger spots, and the rest is a matter of keeping in the middle of those dreaded bridges. On the down side, its a bit too easy to fall from a bridge and find yourself at the back. The opponents never make mistakes, and only the most perfect drive is good enough to win most races. A.I. is non-existent, and the whole thing mostly feels like Licenseware. That being said, the tunes of this game are memorable, and although the courses are forgettable, the experience isnt. Certainly better than RVF Honda or Combo Racer in that regard, and even many commercial titles. Compared to U.S. Gold/Sega conversions of many arcade games, this puts them all to shame, and thats because of the Amiga vibe built into the core. I'd give this 6.5 as a very good game, but its not on the level as the commercial classics.