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 on the OCS / ECS Amiga are quite smooth, colorful (up to 32 on screen) and fast! They backgrounds gradually change as you progress through each checkpoint, a fact that gives a non-stop progression through the game. The sprites (aka the motorbikes) move fast and are nicely animated and designed too. The other objects such as the road signaling, the lights, the trees etc are also nicely done and keep (along with the static backdrops) the overall presentation in good standards. Super Hang-On may not set any new standards for outstanding visuals back in the day, but it's fast and fun! Note that the Amiga version runs faster and smoother when compared to the Atari ST counterpart (cannot compare to the DOS and Mac conversions). Only the Amiga version shows wide road bars and race tracks in the correct proportion to the rest of the graphics. More on that, the Amiga version uses hardware sprites (not supported by the Atari ST machines) for the nitro flares, the dust clouds and, when the Blitter chip takes action, the game is fast and smooth with no flickering or slow-downs in the process (e.g. in tight corners the hardware can handle the horizontal pixel scroll the game needs at this point). The Amiga sounds are better than the ST's! The introductory tune (although short) is of better sampled quality too, while the in-game sound effects are all digitized (the engine, the tires gripping and the turbo boost sounds are simply awesome!)