{"id":2090796,"date":"2026-08-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2090796"},"modified":"2026-08-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:00:00","slug":"driving-a-2400bhp-v12-engined-car-to-beat-traffic-why-this-80s-game-is-a-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2090796","title":{"rendered":"Driving a 2,400bhp, V12-engined car to beat&#8230; traffic? Why this 80s game is a classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p><em>Road Fighter<\/em> was not, as it sounds, the more ambitious sequel to <em>Street Fighter<\/em>, but instead an early top-down arcade racer from Konami. While it wasn\u2019t the first game to represent driving from the dizzying perspective of a passing bird, <em>Road Fighter<\/em>\u2019s astonishing sensation of speed certainly made it one of the more challenging.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t really the road you were fighting at all, but congestion. Lasting longer than just a handful of seconds in <em>Road Fighter<\/em> required you to enter a sort of flow state, anticipating the constant stream of upcoming traffic like you were reading the cascading lines of code in <em>The Matrix<\/em>. Within moments of starting, the scenery was a blur as you negotiated point-to-point courses that occasionally narrowed to a wince-inducing two lanes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>And while the player car was allegedly a \u2018Corvette\u2019, the performance specs listed on the game\u2019s title screen are a little suspect. Even in the decade of excess that was the 1980s, we don\u2019t recall you being able to leave the Chevrolet dealership forecourt with a car that featured a V12 engine generating 2,400 horsepower. It\u2019s no wonder that the in-game fighter jets and superheroes that fly past as you play struggle to even overtake you.<\/p>\n<p>While <em>Road Fighter<\/em> might not be a name that\u2019s immediately familiar to modern gamers, its legacy stretched for decades, with sequels that appeared under a variety of different titles including <em>Konami GT<\/em>, <em>Midnight Run<\/em> and <em>Winding Heat<\/em>. The final sequel, the Japan-only <em>Road Fighters<\/em>, was a greatest hits of Konami racers, including tracks from <em>Enthusia Professional Racing<\/em> and <em>GTI Club<\/em>, and arrived in 2010, 26 years after the original title hit arcade floors. Talking of legacy: over 40 years later, we still don\u2019t have a production Corvette that puts out 2,400 horsepower. What gives, Chevrolet?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p><em>Arcade\/NES, 1984<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Road Fighter was not, as it sounds, the more ambitious sequel to Street Fighter, but instead an early top-down arcade racer from Konami. While it wasn\u2019t the first game to represent driving from the dizzying perspective of a passing bird, Road Fighter\u2019s astonishing sensation of speed certainly made it one of the more challenging. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2090796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2090796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2090796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2090796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2090796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2090796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2090796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}