Revel in arcade awesomeness with 3 top retro racers.
The retro racing game Top Racer Collection from QUByte Interactive is a welcome surprise in the PC arcade racing scene. Originally released as Top Gear in North America by Gremlin Graphics for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System this new game collects the original three games (Top Gear, Top Gear 2, Top Gear 3000) plus a host of extras. The collection uses the original Japanese names, maybe due to a licensing issue with a certain British TV show.
The first two games take place on racing circuits around the world with Top Racer 3000 taking place on planets around the galaxy, or someplace in space. Top Racer and Top Racer 2 both feature a pit-lane to refuel while Top Racer 3000 has strips on the track to either recharge your boost or repair your car.
Top Racer Collection starts with the option to start in Arcade or Online mode. Arcade mode is single player and includes original games campaign mode and adds a quick race, time attack, and custom cup modes.
Campaign is a series of races on all of the games tracks. In Top Racer 2 and Top Racer 3000 you can upgrade your car from the money won based on the place you come in at the end of the race. Top Racer one only had a basic campaign with the ability to choose your car at the beginning. The other two games only had one car to drive that could be upgraded.
Quick Race lets you race against the AI on any track with any car and upgrades.
Time Attack is you, the track, and your own record, local records, or global rankings. There are other cars on the track but your only concern is your own time. As with Quick Race you can choose your car and upgrades.
Custom Cup lets you create a set of 4 races against the AI or local split-screen.
Top Racer 3000 has Versus mode which is an up to 4 player race (local split-screen, online)
Has it’s own scoring system.
There technically is a fourth game in the collection, Top Racer Crossroads. This is really just the first game with four new cars inspired by modern vehicles. The cars do feel distinct from the originals so you have to adjust your driving style accordingly.
One funny thing is in all of the modes you can turn on mirror mode on the tracks. When enabled everything is mirrored. Not just the track but all of the graphics and interface. It’s a little disconcerting at first but a fun addition.
The game handles and plays very smoothly. It’s played from a third-person perspective with 2D pixel art sprites. The graphics are great, colourful, and a cool representation of 90s super cars for Top Racer and Top Racer 2. The car in Top Racer 3000 is some sort of futuristic super car, a kind of mash up of every car a kid would have a poster of up on their wall. The frame rate is smooth which makes this kind of pseudo 3D racer super easy to control. Some games like this from the era could have rough frame rates and not fun at all to control. This isn’t the case here thankfully.
Top Racer Collection can be played with either a game pad or keyboard. Since the steering, throttle, and braking is digital in the originals and this version, playing with a keyboard is a totally valid option. Both options play perfectly fine.
The three games all play and control very much the same. The only difference maybe is Top Racer 3000 ups the overall speed of the cars.
There are also a bunch of extras just off of the main menu. There’s an image gallery of the box and manuals from the 3 original Japanese games and a sound test of music from the 3 original games.
The sound effects are good and accurate to the SNES originals. One surprising thing is how awesome the music still is. The music is really catchy for all of the stages in all of the games. The composer, Barry Leitch also composed the music for Horizon Chase, a great racing game in the spirit of Top Racer.
For multiplayer, Top Racer Collection has online and local split-screen. Local split-screen is available in all of the games and modes save for Time Attack.
Online mode lets you create your own race or Custom Cup or join a server. Unfortunately, at the time of this review the servers were either not functioning or their were no players online so multiplayer could not be tested.
Is Top Racer Collection worth playing?
Totally. Top Racer Collection is a great retro arcade racer with a lot of content and a great soundtrack. The tracks are varied with lots of corners so memorizing each layout is key. In total there’s around 140 tracks to race on so getting through the campaigns in each game can take a fair bit of time.
Note: This was played on a Windows 11 PC through Steam.