Drivin' Force
Drivin' Force, developed and published by Digital Magic Software in 1990.
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Player's Review
"Take part in twelve different competitions, Race in any of six vehicles, including a Jet-Ski for the bonus levels. Pit your speed, skill and endurance against the elements and eight other competitors in a hard fought battle for positions. Roces take place on various terrains, affecting each of your vehicles in different ways. So throw caution to the wind and drive for all you're worth to reach your ultimate goal.
Drivin' Force runs in FIFTY FRAMES PER SECOND- the same speed as the fastest arcade machines - so ask for a demonstration now!
- Six pieces of driving music , 12 different competitions, 50 frames per second, 30 different tracks, No disc swapping (950K on disc), 6 different vehicles, 5 varied terrains, Practice option, Choice of country/male or female, Joystick or mouse control, 8 opponents."
Driven' Force was released for both the Atari ST and Amiga 500. Amazingly runs from just a single disk so no disk swapping but any extra memory you have is not utilised so there is a fair bit of loading between levels. For this recording I used the WHDLoad install which removes most of that wait time and saves me the headache of trimming those blank screens out.
At the start you get to choose a game mode. A full Knockout championship where you race on 25 tracks and need to finish in the top three to progress. League championship where you need to race through 25 tracks in a random order (so you may get harder tracks near the start) and need to finish with highest overall score to win the mode. Then there is the mini knockout where you race five tracks with a vehicle of your choice. If you finish each track in first place you will get to play a bonus race on a jetski. There are five of these tracks, one for each vehicle mode. Then finally, the mini league where you need the highest overall score after five races to play the bonus jetski race.
The gameplay is fast and the track can switch elevation and direction in a split second. Your initial thought might be that this looks a bit like Power Drift but this is much faster. You can play with mouse or joystick but I didn't find mouse very playable as the vehicle moves in an instant so joystick is used. Going round tight bends throws you out to the sides so you need to tap the accelerator button to try and maintain just the right amount of speed. Hitting any obstacles or racers will throw you backwards. The opponents can be quite aggressive and I found Knockout mode slightly easier of the two modes and you only need to finish each race in the top three. There can be a real fight to the finish line in league mode and sometimes I don't even catch up to the front runner.
The longplay firstly goes through all 25 races of League Mode with Music. The Chuck Rock band and Zool have collaborated to produce a kicking sound track for this game. The are six tunes in all including the title music and they all rotateduring the course of the championship which is nice. I then follow up with Knockout championship with SFX enabled. The ending is the same and the only reason I kept it was because it shows the sfx being different for each vehicle. I then show Mini Knockout and League. Each one of these has a bonus track at the end but overall very unrewarding for the effort. Again there are difficulty differences between the two modes but league is a safer bet for reaching the bonus level.
Overall, this is a fine game for a 1990 release on a stock A500 running as makes you wonder what Power Drift might have been like if developed by this games developers. The games difficulty does limit its appeal a bit as some races can feel unfair with its obstacles on tight bends throwing you back while the front racers race off into the distance. It also feels a bit unfinished without any kind of ending for the Mini Knockout / league even after playing the bons races, not even a credit roll. Makes me think, what was the point and its not like those bonus races get unlocked to play in another mode.
00:00:00 Titles
00:02:05 League Championship (Music)
01:03:25 Knockout Championship (SFX)
02:03:22 Mini League (Music 1 - Buggy)
02:17:24 Mini Knockout (SFX - Formula 1)
02:37:16 Mini Knockout (Music 2 - Truck)
02:49:04 Mini League (Music 3 - Moto X)
03:04:022 Mini League (Music 5 - Car)
Drivin' Force runs in FIFTY FRAMES PER SECOND- the same speed as the fastest arcade machines - so ask for a demonstration now!
- Six pieces of driving music , 12 different competitions, 50 frames per second, 30 different tracks, No disc swapping (950K on disc), 6 different vehicles, 5 varied terrains, Practice option, Choice of country/male or female, Joystick or mouse control, 8 opponents."
Driven' Force was released for both the Atari ST and Amiga 500. Amazingly runs from just a single disk so no disk swapping but any extra memory you have is not utilised so there is a fair bit of loading between levels. For this recording I used the WHDLoad install which removes most of that wait time and saves me the headache of trimming those blank screens out.
At the start you get to choose a game mode. A full Knockout championship where you race on 25 tracks and need to finish in the top three to progress. League championship where you need to race through 25 tracks in a random order (so you may get harder tracks near the start) and need to finish with highest overall score to win the mode. Then there is the mini knockout where you race five tracks with a vehicle of your choice. If you finish each track in first place you will get to play a bonus race on a jetski. There are five of these tracks, one for each vehicle mode. Then finally, the mini league where you need the highest overall score after five races to play the bonus jetski race.
The gameplay is fast and the track can switch elevation and direction in a split second. Your initial thought might be that this looks a bit like Power Drift but this is much faster. You can play with mouse or joystick but I didn't find mouse very playable as the vehicle moves in an instant so joystick is used. Going round tight bends throws you out to the sides so you need to tap the accelerator button to try and maintain just the right amount of speed. Hitting any obstacles or racers will throw you backwards. The opponents can be quite aggressive and I found Knockout mode slightly easier of the two modes and you only need to finish each race in the top three. There can be a real fight to the finish line in league mode and sometimes I don't even catch up to the front runner.
The longplay firstly goes through all 25 races of League Mode with Music. The Chuck Rock band and Zool have collaborated to produce a kicking sound track for this game. The are six tunes in all including the title music and they all rotateduring the course of the championship which is nice. I then follow up with Knockout championship with SFX enabled. The ending is the same and the only reason I kept it was because it shows the sfx being different for each vehicle. I then show Mini Knockout and League. Each one of these has a bonus track at the end but overall very unrewarding for the effort. Again there are difficulty differences between the two modes but league is a safer bet for reaching the bonus level.
Overall, this is a fine game for a 1990 release on a stock A500 running as makes you wonder what Power Drift might have been like if developed by this games developers. The games difficulty does limit its appeal a bit as some races can feel unfair with its obstacles on tight bends throwing you back while the front racers race off into the distance. It also feels a bit unfinished without any kind of ending for the Mini Knockout / league even after playing the bons races, not even a credit roll. Makes me think, what was the point and its not like those bonus races get unlocked to play in another mode.
00:00:00 Titles
00:02:05 League Championship (Music)
01:03:25 Knockout Championship (SFX)
02:03:22 Mini League (Music 1 - Buggy)
02:17:24 Mini Knockout (SFX - Formula 1)
02:37:16 Mini Knockout (Music 2 - Truck)
02:49:04 Mini League (Music 3 - Moto X)
03:04:022 Mini League (Music 5 - Car)
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