I previously reviewed the initial release of Side Swipers, and I’ll be honest, if you didn’t play it for its initial version, you really missed out.
The game has had something of an unusual and unique release on Intellivision Amico Home, as it has released at a cheap price, and with the cheap price it has very little content. With each content update, the developers at Intellivision are increasing the price, but fortunately if you bought it early, you’ll get each update free of charge with no additional costs involved.
If you’ve seen my previous review, you’ll see that I thought it was a mistake for them to release the game in the state it was in. Whilst you could play a single player game, as a racing game, the single player component saw you zip around the track alone and guaranteed to win. This was no fun in a game of this style, as you can literally hold down the acceleration button to zip around the track at full speed.
There is no element of steering in this racing game. You either hold down the accelerator to go full speed or a brake button to slow down. So, whilst some racing games can be enjoyed with a time trial mode or to practice a track without opponents, Side Swipers alone is like holding down a play button on a VCR to keep the tape going forward.
The game in its initial release also featured only one track. Well, the first update to the game is here and it adds AI controlled opponents.
Unfortunately, the game still only features one track, but at least now, you can race against computer-controlled opposition. I’m not sure why they say AI opponents rather than CPU opponents as has usually been the tradition with all computer controlled characters since…well forever. I guess AI is the buzz word these days and so they’re just sticking with that.
But here is the issue. I genuinely haven’t been able to play this new version for more than fifteen seconds without the game knocking me off the track and the AI opponents winning every single time. With four cars on the track is feels nearly impossible to avoid being knocked off the track almost immediately.
It would seem you also have access to some power ups. I’m not really sure how these all function as it seems like you can only use these once you’re out and maybe these are to mess with opponents after you’re eliminated. If I wasn’t knocked off the track by another car, without fail, every single time, the game would set me crash into a wall that can be activated on the middle of the track.
And that basically is all the gameplay I got to tangle with in Side Swipers for the Intellivision Amico Home platform.
What would you rate this game?
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