If I have to describe the Road Rash game just in two words, I have to say - Childhood memories. Maybe this game was first released on the Playstation, but I played this game when I first bought my PC in 2006 - 2008, I guess! And during the holiday, nobody even couldn't get me off this game. So, there's no surprise I am going to praise this game. I remember playing it with my big brother, He used to drive and I controlled the hitting part. Because back then it was hard to riding and kicking at the same time using the keyboard! Ah good old days!
Road Rash is an updated version of the classic first road rash sega mega drive. In this game, you have to participate in illegal and very violent street racing. There are three modes in the game - Big game mode, thrash mode, and mano-a-mano. In big game mode, you can select your favorite riders from the rider list; you can check their profile as well. And all riders look like gangsters and obviously ready to start their nasty and violent bike ridings.
One of my favorite thing on this version of road rash is Big game mode, which is like career style mode. Here you can pick your maniac, qualify to play longer and harder tracks, earn money by winning, and move up the ladder in the rider's billboard. Little touches like chatting with the other racers in the club are pretty cool.
And if you don't want to waste time on career mode, you should go for thrash mode. Thrash mode is like just press the start button and GO!
At first, you'll start racing with an old bike. Earn money by winning the race and buy better bikes. Winning games will allow you to unlock longer tracks. Though you can win by playing fair, I highly recommend the dirty race. Grabbing, punching, and kicking the opponents while riding is pure fun. You can also hit the general people beside roads and while crossing roads. That's sounds pathetic, but let me tell you the truth. It was more fun back then when we were younger.
But if you hit innocent people, police will try to catch you with their bikes and stay with you like glue. You can beat the police while riding as well. But if you fell when the officer is on your back, game over! The real fun was in stealing the stick from the police!
On the PC, you can play the game either with a keyboard or joystick. Default keyboard settings were complicated to get used to. So with some alterations, I was able to play the game slightly better. In the PC version of Road Rash, there's an extra feature. There's a distance reader that telling you how far your nearest opponent is. This is an excellent handy feature; apart from this feature, the rest of the game is identical to the PlayStation version. Graphics, gameplay, everything is quite the same.
But game loading time on PC is far better than the PlayStation version. Despite some tweaks in the PC version, same artwork, same background, same menu setup, and of course, the same excellent music.
The game features over 25 minutes of full-motion video that you can see at the beginning and end of each race. And those videos are like some funny movie scene and really entertaining. Video depends on your defeat, winning, or bike explosion. If you win, you will see one type of video; if you lose, you will see a loser video. The graphic is excellent for its time. The character design in the menu is too hilarious.
Character Axel from Road Rash - Source
There are five courses in the game with five different places, all California locales: The City, The Peninsula, Pacific Coast Highway, Sierra Nevada, and Napa Valley. It definitely would have been cool to have more than five courses. If there were a two-player split-screen mode, this game would have been in my number one favorite classic game. But still, Road Rash is a must-play game for any racing gamer or who loves to crush their enemies.
I used to play this game a lot back in the days. I can say how much time I just spent behind this game. It's cool now to play modern racing games with real-life-looking graphics and lots of modes. But no modern games can give you the feeling that classic game you when you were younger.
I think I first played this on 3DO
I never played the first two, but Road Rash 3 was one of my favorite games as a kid!
Sounds kinda like GTA with the cops chasing you around after you run over random people lol