3D Speed Duel
In 1983 my father came home from work gripping a grubby little cassette in his paws. It was called 3D Speed Duel. He was rather excited about it, it involved racing cars. At the time my only experience with this type of game had been Chequered Flag , in which I pottered around the track at 10 mph merrily blowing myself up.
I was about to be introduced to something new, different and just a little bit frustrating. Controlling vehicles, be it cars, rollerskates, shopping trollies, bicycles or scooters was not something that came easily to my dyslexic mind. So once again this game was brought into the house under the banner of educational software. I don't think it occurred to my Mother that my Dad had ideas about sitting up till the early hours living out his racing driver dreams.
Now by today's standards this is a very simple racing game, although it does allow you a selection of tracks, opponents and a practice mode ( oh, yes, that got a LOT of use by me) . What first got my attention was that blue road and yellow fields. Growing up in an area where Rapeseed is produced I was very use to seeing the yellow flowers of that plant in the summer, so this felt very much like driving in Somerset! But as soon as I started to move the car I began to realise that I was out of my depth. This was a fast game ( for 1983) , steering was very , responsive , shall we say, compared to what I had been used to.
Also I discovered that unlike dear old Chequered Flag veering off the road was rewarding by your car turning into a fireball. This was a slight problem for me, I liked to take my corners wide, possibly so wide I went into the next field in some cases! My progress around a practice track could be monitored by noises of cars crashing and the occasional rude word. Not so for my father who appeared to sail round the track with Jedi like powers. At that point all those years ago I pretty much parted company with the game. It was stuck in my pile of cassettes somewhere near the bottom and rarely loaded if at all. Until......
Fast forward to 2020 and I needed something to de-stress me after a nasty toxic job had ended and retrogaming seemed just the thing. As a result of this the memory of this game resurfaced and I couldn't resist loading it up again just to see if it was as bad as I had remembered.
I didn't crash the car all the way round, no more bursting in to flame at the first corner. I could complete a lap, how did that happen? Was it another skill I had picked up during those years away from the game? I found I was guiding the car along the centre of the road as I would guide material into a sewing machine! It worked though! Suddenly an Eureka moment happened and after 30 + years I was finally able to play this ruddy game!
It goes to prove though, like a fine wine some games improve with age, or is it us, the players, that improve with age?
It goes to prove though, like a fine wine some games improve with age, or is it us, the players, that improve with age?