GamesMaster News S04E01
0Sega 32X
Star Wars
Virtua Racing Deluxe
Star Wars [1] is a 1993 arcade game developed by Sega and based on the original Star Wars trilogy. Combining elements of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, the game has players pilot a Rebel starship and battle against the forces of the Empire. Sega developed Star Wars for their Model 1 system, the same arcade hardware that powered Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. Like those two titles, the graphics in Star Wars are rendered entirely using polygons. The game was given a home port under the name Star Wars Arcade, as an exclusive for the Sega 32X's launch in 1994.
Sega followed up the release of Star Wars Arcade with Star Wars Trilogy Arcade and Star Wars: Racer Arcade, as well as a Star Wars pinball game.
Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to that of Atari's 1983 Star Wars arcade game. Players pilot an X-wing or a Y-wing in first- or third-person perspective and battle Imperial forces.
The game has three levels which include intercepting TIE fighters in an asteroid field, destroying a Super Star Destroyer, and making an assault run on a Death Star. The arcade cabinet allows two people to play, with one serving as pilot and the other as gunner.
Virtua Racing Deluxe is a racing game that plays similarly to its 1992 arcade counterpart. The car is steered with Left and Right, accelerates with B, and brakes with A. If equipped with a manual transmission, Up upshifts and Down downshifts.
The standard mode has the player race five laps against fifteen computer-controlled opponents on any of five different tracks. Each track is broken into multiple timed segments, and the player is given more time for passing a checkpoint marker (80 seconds on Easy, 75 seconds on Normal, and 70 seconds on Hard). The player is retired from the race if time runs out.
There is a Time Attack mode where the player can race on any of the tracks without any opponents. In this mode, there is no time limit. The player can choose to race 5, 10, 15, or 20 laps.
The game supports two-player competitive play with a split screen. Each player can select a handicap, which affects the handling of the car. Like the Time Attack mode, players can choose to race 5, 10, 15, or 20 laps.
The car can take damage from crashes, which eventually impairs its performance. The player can take a pit stop to repair the vehicle. The pit is located at the starting point of the track. The countdown timer pauses when the player is in the pit and adds ten seconds when the player starts moving again, though the player can still be passed by other racers while in the pit. The Bay Bridge and Highland courses do not have a pit, and it is also absent in two-player mode.