That Rare's R.C. Pro-Am turned out so disappointing was one of my first major surprises in this endeavor. A real kick to my nostalgic bone. This had me lowering my expectations for Super R.C. Pro-Am a fair bit. What a twist of fate then, that this Gameboy venture actually turned out quite amazing. Though far from flawless.
Super R.C. Pro-Am follows the same general formula as its console outing. You take control a little remote-controlled car and race through 24 stages. During these you can pick up upgrades and weapons for your car, which carry over into subsequent races. You can outrace the competition fair and square or pelt them with explosives. Just be ready to drive over a few puddles of oil or crash into scenery from time to time as karmic retribution.
Visuals are great for a GameBoy game. The sprites are chunky and detailed. You can really make out the difference between different hazards and the cars themselves look neat. The controls have survived the transition as well. You hold down the button to drive and use the D-pad to shift your orientation. It takes some getting used to, but you'll be drifting around corners in no time. It feels good to control. Even a little better than it did on the NES.
The other face button is for your weapons. You can drop mines or fire rockets, which will very temporarily take your rivals out. Though crashing into things after slipping on oil can also achieve this. There's even a Power Star-like item that makes your car flash colors and causes everyone that touches you to spin out. Did Nintendo take the idea for the Power Star in Mario Kart from this?
Super R.C. Pro-Am also handles its campaign the same way as the original did. In that you start up the game and get thrown in a sequence of races, rather than picking which race you want to do. A definitive improvement, however, is that the tracks are now unique. There's only 24 now, but each layout is fresh. They're also challenging, with tricky paths and obstacles where you least expect them. Even devious little tricks like putting booster pads that send you straight into a wall. I had a good time with these courses.
This does also that the game retains some bad habits as well though. If you miss out on an upgrade during the race, it's lost forever. If you lose a race, the game still advances so long as you weren't dead last. There's also a new problem that, in my opinion, trumps all other. There's a bug in the game whereby the AI's rubberbanding will flip out. If you use weapons to destroy an opponent's car, there's a good chance they will respawn and never lose their bonus momentum. They will fly off faster than you could ever possibly match or catch up to. This can happen at any time and it happens frequently enough that I had it happen to multiple opponents in the same race sometimes. This is REALLY bad. Unacceptably bad even.
Even when it does behave, the rubberbanding feels cheap. It's coded so that all the AI cars attempt to match your position no matter what. Even if you drive amazing, you can never get the satisfaction of leaving opponents in the dirt. They will always pull back up to you. What's the point of destroying their cars anyway if they respawn in a second and get back to their original position. Likewise, it's often very easy to recover from mistakes as your opponents slow down to allow you a recovery. Though the rubberbanding is admittedly much less generous when it's you who needs to catch up.
It's fun to play through a racing game this good-looking and smooth on the GameBoy. The shortcomings it inherited and this rubberbanding make it a game you likely won't want to finish though.
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