Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and Omega Race. Three games that made me sit up and exclaim “howtheydothat!”. OK, so time has mellowed my reaction to Omega race but in the early eighties this was the business. Originally a Midway arcade machine, Omega race came to the Vic-20 in cartridge form and WAS in the arcade machine – in my house. The Vic-20 had no sprites so game characters would move about in 8 by 8 pixel blocks in lesser games. Not very smooth. With Omega race the game characters glide about in one pixel steps and can overlap each other. For me this conjures up the same feeling as seeing the camera fly over Hyrule Field at start of Ocarina of time – something magical is at work here.

The game itself is similar to Asteroids in that you control a spaceship that rotates and thrusts about the screen. The opposition consists of circular “droids” that slowly evolve into mine dropping, laser spitting fiends that bounce about the screen. Until that happens the droids are placid slow moving creatures that only take a player life if crashed into. The screen does not wrap around as in Asteroids. The action is contained, player and enemy rebound off the screen edges and large central score box. This makes for tighter game play that does not feel claustrophobic.

The arcade machine used black and white vector line graphics but in the Vic version the background and main graphics can be user defined.

The sound effects are good and even the four note “tune” that constantly plays does not annoy.

A word of warning. Do not play this game just before going to bed as Omega race comes with a gold plated hook big enough to land Jaws. Engraved on this hook are the words “JUST ONE MORE GO”.

Press F1 at any time to restart if YOU mess up and you will. The game does not punish failure; it leaves that up to the player to punish themselves.

Marvellous.