| Speed King |
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Speed King is a single-player back-view motorcycle race against 19 opponents. Mervyn J. Estcourt originally wrote it on the ZX Spectrum 48K as Full Throttle in mid-1984. The courses exist for real and were supplied by weekly newspaper Motorcycle News.
You can choose between 10 courses and between 2, 4 and 6 laps. For each combination, your shortest race time is recorded, and for each course, your shortest lap time, and best rank after last lap. Off record, you can choose between novice, pro (where opponents are 15 mph faster) or champion (30 mph).
Even for 1985, the graphics and sound are rough, yet realistic enough, almost hyped.
In 1986, Mastertronic remade two screens, added keys to save and load your records on disk (hidden but still working in the tape port), and whenever you are on front, your opponents stay close behind. However, it was quickly overtaken by Epyx's Super Cycle (C64). Anyway, if the main menu is blue, don't get too far from the road!
Screenshots
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Mastertronic's loading screen.
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Image Systems's Spectrum title screen with Suzuki!
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Digital Integration's exciting main menu. Novice, press F8 twice!
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Mastertronic's dull main menu with S and L keys.
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Cuuuuurve!
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WHY YOU...
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Music
This port adds a main menu song. In-game, sound effects play for start, your engine, rattling over grass, over far grass at 50 mph (high-pitched crash), into an opponent (low-pitched crash), an opponent driving into you (honk), and typewriter (after your last lap). Although the engine sounds very simple (in synthesizer terms, a 1% pulse wave), it has always been specifically praised how it changes pitch as you shift gear.
Unfortunately, all that sounds very different on about every Commodore.
Recording
The song was recorded from the game:
- in VICE 3.2 with C64 PAL and a gain of 91 and bias of -150.
- in VICE 3.2 with C64 NTSC and a gain of 91 and bias of -150.
- in VICE 3.2 with C64 PAL and a gain of 91 and bias of 300.
- in VICE 3.2 with C64 NTSC and a gain of 91 and bias of 300.
- on a real PAL C64C with an 8580 R5 4091.
- in VICE 3.2 with C64C NTSC.
Credits
(No source. Game lacks audio credits.)
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Source verification is needed.
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Game Rip
Audio Devices
This game uses the computer's built-in SID chip. It sounds very different on every machine because it uses SID's unstable high-pass filter: from loud and clear, over small speakers, to distant earplugs. What you got for real is like a grab bag, but emulators allow to alter the filter.
On NTSC machines, everything is 4% faster and higher than on PAL.
SID is also used to move the red and white stripes, so if you remove the sound chip, you lose not only sound, but also sense of speed.
Releases
Links
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