TURBO CHARGE
COMMODORE 64, 1991
■ Before Turbo Charge, Commodore 64 combat racing games either prioritised speed over large, well-defined graphics or favoured big, nice-looking visuals over pace. As a result, the C64 versions of coin-ops like Roadblasters and Chase HQ didn’t go down well. Turbo Charge may have come out years after those disappointing ports, but it certainly didn’t repeat their mistakes. In fact, the Zzap!64 Sizzler does everything that they didn’t quite manage to pull off. The features decorating its roadside scale up to screen height, and they’re as high res as the C64 is capable of. Crucially, they also fly past you at a fair lick, more than fast enough to give you that all-important sensation of speed. There are even limited supplies of targeted missiles to complement your unlimited machine-gun ammo. Further thrills are delivered by the game’s airborne threats: helicopters and fighter jets, and unlike the C64 Out Run, the roads in Turbo Charge split, with wrong turns leading to roadblocks.