Memories #27: Super Off Road

My early and later years with the SNES was filled with many a video game rental from Blockbuster Video (RIP). Renting games was the thing you did when you wanted to try a game out or you just didn't feel like dropping $50 on a new game. Or you couldn't drop $50 on a new game. Being a child at the time, I fell into the couldn't category.

The yellow truck AI is in the back but he'll be
right out in first real quick.

I imagine that by the time Super Off Road was ported to consoles (in doing this write up, I found out it was originally an arcade game) a good chunk of gamers had already been exposed to overhead racers such as R.C. Pro-Am on the NES. I was not among those gamers so the entire concept of players sharing he same screen and racing with an overhead view was new to me. As such, my sister and I struggled a great deal with the controls. We would twist, spin around and turn in the wrong direction and end up losing so many races. Hour first few hours/days was very much a learning experience.

The time we poured into the game did of course pay off. Sure, we still had a time of it here and there, but we did get the basic controls down and ended up having a lot of fun with Super Off Road and that is especially important when it came to a rental. There was nothing worse than renting a turd back in the day.

What a surprise, the yellow truck driver
came in first.

The thing I hated the most about Super Off Road was the AI of the yellow truck. That thing seldom came in a place lower than second and seeing his smug face in first place 9 out of 10 times always infuriated me. Like, that guy would never make mistakes. He was a god of off road racing. Only three racers could place and the poor sap to get fourth would always get a screen of him looking super salty and that character was usually me or my sister. Seriously, the yellow truck driver was unbeatable. The few times we did manage to beat him either by sheer luck or enough nitros to out-boost him was cause for a celebration. That dang yellow AI truck driver was the only thing that ruined any otherwise fun rental for me.

If I did come across Super Off Road in a store that sells used SNES carts, would I pick it up? Yeah, probably. I'd like to see how well it holds and now that I'm older and wiser, I could probably really stick it to that freaking yellow truck AI.

Screens from GameFaqs