Super Hang-On

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You race riding a motorbike through four continents of the world: Africa, Asia, America and Europe. Each continental race is divided into timed stages and failing to complete a stage within the required time, the game is over. Each stage gives you 32 seconds to complete and any seconds left from the previous stage are added to the new ones. The standard acceleration control can be held down for most of the race, but towards really tricky bends you will have to resort to the brakes. The change in speed affects the radius of your turns, which may easily crash you onto road signs or road lights...! What is really exciting on this game is that when you gain enough speed your speedometer will turn red signifying that you can activate your turbo boost (which is not limited at all)! As long as you hold the turbo down you will keep boosting which gives a real rush as your engine screams out higher and higher pitches, the longer you boost! Ok, the computer and console versions are not the same mainly because there were different versions on the arcades. Those differences though, rely only on the position and the type of the (original) bends of each track. Super Hang-On is a tried and true formula like any other great arcade bike (and car) racer released at this period of time. Especially the original (the arcade) version, in which the player plays riding a full-scaled motorbike model, is an enormous experience!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are smooth and fast and change in appearance (colors and backgrounds) as you progress through each checkpoint, a fact that gives a seemingly non-stop progression through the game. The sprites (motorbikes) move fast and are nicely animated and designed, similarly looking to the Amiga version. The other objects like the road signs, lights, trees etc are also nicely made and keep (along with the static backdrops) the presentation in good standards. Ok, Super Hang-On did not set any new standards for outstanding visuals back in the day, but it’s fast, colorful (up to 16 colors here) and, most of all, it keeps to its roots of arcade fun. Unfortunately, the ST version suffers from a few slowdowns when compared to the Amiga and of course, to the X68000. This occurs in tight corners where the ST hardware cannot handle the horizontal pixel scroll the game needs due to the lack of a Blitter chip on the early ST models and the non hardware sprites capability found only in the Amiga hardware. On the other hand, the game's sound is great (though a bit "noisy" on the ST), and the engine sounds are accompanied by some wonderful in-game tunes too. Note that the Amiga version uses fully digitized sound effects and a better-quality music during gameplay.