26. Monaco GP (Sega, Playstation 2, 2003)

Monaco GP is another Sega arcade game (Just like game 26. Tant-R) that was remade for the Sega Ages 2500 series on the Playstation 2 and eventually bundled together on the Sega Classics Collection in North America.

The original Monaco GP, released in 1979 (holy lord that's 41 years ago), and was a fairly standard racing game for the time. It has a top down view and gameplay primarily consists of driving forward (up) while avoiding other cars. Notable features for the time include color graphics and a cute graphical effect where if your car enters a tunnel, the road goes completely black except for a headlight outline in front of your car.

The last time I played Monaco GP was in the mid-late 90s at a tiny arcade in a run down timeshare in the woods. I'm sure I wasn't very good at it, but I was disappointed to learn that it was not ported to any arcade compilation, and was unavailable to emulate. Per Wikipedia: "The game does not have a CPU; it was the final game made by Sega to use TTL-based discrete logic circuits (thus it is not currently supported by processor-based game emulators such as MAME)". I think this means the original game is not actually possible to emulate, due to the way it was built.

This 2003 remake basically changes nothing about the game, and with some now-dated-looking 3D graphics, there isn't a whole lot of a great time to be had. Thankfully, in addition to the remake, there is also a new mode that uses the same basic framework but adds some interesting gameplay updates. This original mode includes items you can pick up, a jump button to more easily deal with other cars, and crucially, the ability to make turns of 90 degrees or more.

So it becomes basically a simple kart racing game. The real fun part and challenge becomes jumping over the constantly crashing enemies, and anticipating turns. Turning is accomplished by tapping the shoulder buttons, but each tap only turns you 45 degrees, so a 90 degree turn requires a perfectly timed double tap. It becomes nerve-wracking anticipating an upcoming turn, but also very satisfying when you pull it off. Even with these additions, though, the game feels kind of sloppy and unfair.

3/5, an interesting update of an arcade relic, I wonder if I'll live to play the original again.