LGR - Vette! - DOS PC Game Review

Open world racing games are often considered a modern genre. But Vette! from 1989 was a true forerunner, helping bring to the table many innovative features that survive to this day. Race a 1989 model Corvette through an accurate 3D representation of San Francisco, California!
Vette for MS-DOS 386 based PCs by Spectrum Holobyte / Sphere
Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

[@secretRBRman]

holy crap! you found it!!! I played this game in the early 1990s at my neighbors house and tried to find it ever since. all i remember was the San Francisco loading screen and that dyno at the start!

[@LGR]

Happy to reunite you with it! Really neat little game.

[@fordshojoe8080]

Congratulations

[@ActuallySanFrancisco]

as someone who lives in san francisco i can confirm that this is 100% how it looks IRL

[@VieneLea]

Does it also persist at 3 fps?

[@ActuallySanFrancisco]

VieneLea yes. because fog + science.

[@bendsomemetal]

Lars Amble lol yep

[@vubhuhjkbhubohjb]

@@VieneLea with enough LSD yes, yes it does.

[@Psych0technic]

Minus homeless drug addicts, feces & used needles on a pavement, of course.

[@CEO100able]

This game looks like the MS-DOS versions of Midtown Madness 1 and 2 to me.

[@raudalhazazz]

indeed even some traffic cars look similar

[@DYNANiK.official]

Its 2021 now, and 37 years old me watch a 11 year old video about a game I've played 30 years ago... I LOVE YOU CLINT!

[@deeravengertn15]

I own a 1991 vette and I can confirm that the car sounds in this game are spot on

[@atarileaf]

Vette reminds me a lot of an early version of Midtown Madness.

[@davidinark]

Anyone else here in 2020, 10 years after this was posted? Man, LGR has come a long way! Kudos!

[@rideroundandstuff]

2021

[@kinghans6266]

202X

[@twistedyogert]

2023! And may LGR have many more years to come.

[@CroserHadid]

this game is way ahead of it's time amazing

[@manfromnantucket9544]

I had a box set with this game, Stunt Driver, and two flight sims. Couldn't figure out how to fly the damn planes as a kid so I stuck with the driving games. This review takes me back. Thank you for the nostalgia.

[@DustScatter]

Man your videos rock. There's so many shit clickbait videos out there but your actually a good host and have original and very well researched and structured reviews...

[@yellowblanka6058]

Yep, one of the very few quality game channels on YT, criminally under-subbed compared to the "PewDiePies" of KZbin.

[@arie1994]

@@yellowblanka6058 ha ha comment aged like milk

[@MrWolfTickets]

This was the most amazing experience back then. Playing on my Mac SE with very little detail,then the LC with a little more detail, then later on the Quadra with all the detail up. What a great game. LGR you are the best.

[@MrWolfTickets]

crazy about the sound on the pc. the mac was much better. the modem option was cool too. it worked at 1200 baud.

[@DanielMarkstedtR]

Another Mac user here! My brother and I played this game for countless hours on a Performa 400 back in the early 90s. Certainly a precursor to GTA and Midtown Madness later on in that decade.

[@lazylion420]

"you can also elect to put the car on the dyno to get some detailed performance specs" *BEEEEEEEEEEEP* ok terrific

[@leeconstant7261]

this game is on one megabyte. that's crazy.

[@AwesomeRepix]

+lee constant Yea whenever I export one of my games with just one little sound, the game will be more than 2 MB.. It's very hard to believe that games back in the day could be so tiny.

[@Kolumbus2509]

+AwesomeRepix you're probably using gamemaker and that has a lot of overhead required to translate your gamemode into the executable. the sound will be also likely be a recorded wav sound whereas a lot of these games would use synthesized sounds

[@AwesomeRepix]

Kolumbus Nihilsonne Well, I definitely do! :P I was just giving a smaller example. I usually make them a much smaller format and just use them externally :)

[@zaycarnage2780]

@@AwesomeRepix games nowdays are around 50GB or 70GB

[@jameswickham2004]

Imagine if all games today were just 1 mb with all the storage we got today! Lol

[@kimchi2780]

This game was so amazing back in the days. The first real open world game.

[@nullwii]

This is quite impressive Obviously huge limitations were overcome making this game.

[@IronSeagull]

Oh man this is one of the first games I ever played! I still remember the making up excuses part. So much nostalgia, thanks for reviewing this game :D

[@iCarlyfan4534]

damn clint you've been cranking out bangers for a full decade, mad props

[@Claydood]

It's impressive that an open world racing game existed back then.

[@bcyrx]

I love how the book is styled like a typical car manual.

[@MegaDieseldriver]

I actually played this for hours as a kid. Unfortunately ours was not registered and had no manual. So by playing I mean staring at the screens and hoping i would get away with my stolen vette. I remember as a how awesome and futuristic the dashboard looked, and wishing i could really play this. My dad ended up getting Road and Track 10 best a little while later so I played that instead.

[@MegaDieseldriver]

I meant Car and Driver ;) road and track need for speed was when i got my Saturn.

[@wessmithe2278]

Lol now that you mention it I didn't have a registered version either

[@graalcloud]

This game has better rear view mirror reflections than GTAV for PC.

[@marcsm2008]

For some stupid reason, games nowdays don't have rear view mirrors anymore. Well, Assetto Corsa does, but most games don't.

[@SamuraiCaveman]

To be fair modern games also don't have a framerate of roughly 8 FPS either.

[@Imreness]

Today, games look amazing, and we need a much more powerful pc to run them. To render 2 different views, just to have a rearview mirror, its not worth the FPS. + If you think about it, with GTA, every car should have a rear view mirror, thus the Pc has to render every mirror, for every car. So mainly, the reason is FPS, and GTA V wasnt an First-Person game before and since its not a simulator by any means, it does not need one.

[@ryanknol3876]

Imreness to save resources they could make the rear view mirrors only “active” on the car you’re currently in, similiar to how dynamic headlight shadows also only work for the car you’re driving now, and not for NPC cars or parked cars with their lights on.

[@terner1234]

@@ryanknol3876 or just use cubemaps

[@639wheeler]

Wow, I haven't seen or heard about this game in so long, that's why I love this channel, I always see games I used to play back in the day

[@oliverbentley8125]

Although it was still common at that time, it was not a port of an Amiga/Atari ST/Apple 2GS/Macinstosh Plus version of the time (1989) but a product specifically dedicated to the PC. It's quite remarkable and a bold bet on the part of the Sphere studio which has done a remarkable job and has opened up the horizons of 3D on PC.

[@sew3521]

I have not thought about this game in years! Your recent novelty mouse video mentioned Vette so I Googled it and was happy to see you covered this game.

[@THOMASSU63]

Brilliant video! You are very entertaining to listen to, keep it up. Always fun to see these older games from before I started using PC:s (X-mas 91).

[@MrLuisMiguel1]

Holy crap, Clint's voice changed so much. It's like a different person

[@MakINE16V]

My god... it brings me a very good memories. It is funny to see all the staff which came with the game. I played to this game in my uncle's house for hours. It was totally amazing to drive in 3D...it is a piece of history. Nice video mate and good review of the game!!!.

[@ACA332]

Wow you reviewed Vette and Stunt Driver? Two of my favorite games from childhood. Awesome, thanks for this!

[@beans301]

omg i searched this out and i'm tearing up with nostalgia for this. i remember this so well! and you're right, open world indeed. never thought about that.

[@alexkrueger9415]

I really and truly am thankful that another person appreciates all that came with these old games, and I'm particular old game covers. these old games had so little context sometimes, and on occasion (atari 2600 for example) the only idea of what you were doing might be the cover. Keep at it man, someone out there (me) loves the work you're doing, and totally gets it. Maybe do an episode on your all time favorite cover arts, between what they convey, and their overall art? I'd love that

[@OldSchoolNYCGamer]

Great review here Clint, another great DOS classic = )

[@strra]

In 2022, the algorithm told me I needed to watch this again. So I did.

[@randywatson8347]

So amazing for it's time. Despite the outdated gfx, the gameplay is awesome.

[@MrRod787]

Great reviews bro, keep the good work.Loved that you used the background music of the first need for speed, that music brings memories!.Good job ;)

[@Enrahb]

I lived for this game back in the day.

[@Vectrex4Life]

Great review, I'd love to see a review of Indy 500 for DOS. One of the best 3D racers for the time, and it's so funny sometimes to watch crashes over and over in the instant reply mode!

[@Xur808]

Great review! This was the first IBM PC-compatible game I ever bought. In fact, I bought it before I even had a PC to play it on. Saw it sitting on a shelf in a Borders bookstore one day & it looked so damn good, I picked it up. About a week later, I took out a $2000 loan for a 286 computer. So yeah, Vette pretty much got me into PC gaming & I've never stopped.

[@DJzSith]

Thank you for the reply. It's pretty fascinating how much and how fast 3D games progressed through the early 90's. For example, just 2 years later, Starblade came out, and it was pretty awesome.

[@twistedyogert]

6:11 "This is the 3rd time today I had to pull this guy's car out of the water."

[@kloggeddrain]

Great review!

[@ionthegravity2]

LOL!!! I thought this was the most amazing thing I ever saw when this game first came out!!! I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers this!!!

[@potmej1]

Great review, as always :) Thanks!!!

[@Whodini6likesSharpGF]

As a kid during the mid 1990s I was playing 1988 f1 World grand prix and was really impressed by it. This games aesthetic ist very similar, but driving through a entire city with more structures than just the road. I would've been blown away by that

[@illDiology]

Wow, I was clearing out some old magazines today and looked through a few and saw a review of this game and was shocked to see polygonal graphics in 1989, in addition to all the features and controls. Looked it up on youtube and found this excellent review. Very impressive stuff for a 386 game, but maybe even more impressive was that in a few years Papyrus released Nascar for 486 pcs, which was my first pc racing game and pretty damn good.

[@DomeCandyGames]

Nice use of the original NFS soundtrack for this review! Man, I loved the music in that game!

[@azraelle6232]

This game was actually an in-class assignment back in high school computer technology class (cc 1993), along with the original SimCity. I used to love wandering around the city, finding Lombard street and trying unsuccessfully to navigate all the way down without hitting anything. I loved trying to beat the AI on hardest difficulty, and when you lose, you realize that the AI is the game designer himself, saying not to feel too bad about losing - he did design the game, after all.

[@FuzzyKittenOfDoom]

Ah, the nostalgia. This is the first game that I remember playing as a kid. I distinctly remember my dad telling me to turn the sounds off, but I didn't want to because I thought they were cool. Poor guy.

[@themachin548]

Very nice vid. Reminds me a lot of memories.

[@akpokemon]

OH MY GOSH THIS is the one from my childhood!!!! Now I just need to find out what that floppy disk game was where you crash land on an alien planet or something and explore the space ship

[@MARCOPLAYSDOSGAMES]

Very good my friend ... You are absolutely the Best Dos Games Reviewer in the world :) I have the earlier Boxed Version without the funny "Real Duel" sticker as the yours. Anyway, I know of a secret area in the map but I never found it.

[@myhandsspeak1925]

I love your channel. It's interesting. Relaxes me if I'm stressed. Cheers me up if I'm down. Idk why. But it does

[@G9King]

Wow. This was sure a game ahead of its time... and amazing how much paper it had!

[@MagikGimp]

Great game, love the attitude. Thanks D.

[@TaxRebateGunther]

bonus points to LGR for saying "Porsche" correctly

[@norseman__]

He did call the dyno the "dynamo" though.

[@evilkillerwhale7078]

It's not a completely unused term. I mean, it IS a dynamo-meter.

[@spookerredmenace3950]

love this game growing up!

[@SoilentGr33n]

This game is less than a meg. Wow that is impressive

[@Disthron]

Long time no see. Very interesting review. I didn't know EGA games could look that good.

[@madmax2069]

I played the heck out of Vette back in the day. When I got bored with it I did go around and flatten the peds until i couldn't either due to damage or cops. I was in heaven when carmageddon came out.

[@kosztaz87]

I can't believe I have never heard about this game until now. Wow, I am extremely impressed. I had no idea there was an open world racing game like this back then. I was really into Stunts and Test Drive 3 back then.

[@Le_Rennais]

very impressive for a 1989 game !

[@quonomonna8126]

i had this game! great fun, good times! interesting copy protection scheme

[@learrus]

I was a Test Drive 3 fanatic as a kid and have no idea how I never heard of this before or remember seeing it for sale

[@mootpoint7053]

People have been wanting to drive in video games for a long time. A REALLY LONG TIME. My how far we've come.

[@macg86]

Rad review!

[@ELEKTROSKANSEN]

Wow, I was a PC gamer as a kid, and now I'm sad I missed this one!

[@sergicolome]

WOW!!!! One of my firsts driving games!!

[@FirebirdDude]

I always re-play Midtown Madness and Midtown Madness 2 just to drive around town for the heck of it. MM2 takes place in San Francisco and London. Car people enjoy driving for the sake of driving. I don't mean to start a fight or for that to be taken as an insult as I am not acquainted with you. But I would definitely play this game for hours and hours just to observe the awesome and relatively accurate layout of the Corvette's interior. Once again, I enjoyed your review, man. : )

[@jesseFNjames]

One of the first games I ever remember playing! Video maker forgot one key aspect of the game though, you can adjust the gravity somehow. I remember flying off into space when I hit a jump, or if I turned it down, I would just fly over the city and land somewhere. One of my favorite parts.

[@Bige4u]

Good times.... my dad got this game not too long after he bought an AST 486 dx2 66mhz system brand new back in 1994 for around $1400. I still have the original 3.5" floppy disk that still works, but sadly, i dont have a clue where the retail box or booklet is to answer those questions at the begining of every run.

[@cornofulguropoing]

what an ambitious game for its time. Too bad about the sound, may be an amiga version would have fixed that. Not sure it had the processor capacity to handle this game though. Your reviews are top notch, informative, funny, I love them.

[@digitalrailroader]

and I watched this review on the same day as 8 Pretty Much Irreplaceable Corvettes fell to their Doom in a Sinkhole at the National Corvette Museum.

[@korblborp]

D:

[@scottcampbell4353]

The computer in the library of my elementary school had Vette, Stunt Driver, and Falcon on it for some reason. I don't remember any of them having copy protection. We certainly didn't have the manuals handy. I wonder if there was ever a special collection of them released.

[@lgoisgois7335]

This game is the GrandFather of Driver Franchise... BTW i played a lot when i was a child.

[@djMiSSDeeeZ]

The very first race game I played at home was Pitstop (Epyx) on the C64, somewhere in the eighties (propably in 1984)

[@digitalmagicAR]

This game was pretty incredible at the time. Lots of fun and we even raced each other via modem. I used to try to take the Sledgehammer Corvette to top speed in the hills of SF

[@straighttailpilot]

dang. gotta remember the old days

[@Sir_Newkirk]

This game is so cool!

[@ThorMaxx]

I used to have the MAC version f this game for my LC. The graphics and Sound were INCREDIBLE. Real engine sound, and the intro had some great music. If you can find it, I would highly recommend it on the Mac.

[@cyrexarcfire8584]

My best friend owned this game when he got his first PC, was the first non-console game I ever played. We used to see how many people we could run over before the cops got us. We were 7 years old. xD

[@therevengor]

One unique thing about the steering in this game was the '5' key on the keypad. It would align your car to the road, allowing you pretty much stay in your lane on the freeways by holding it down.

[@kabj06]

Ughhhh makes me miss my vette so freakin hard. Had an '86 that looked identical to the one in the game, down to the sawblade wheels. fuck I need another vette

[@KalpeshPatel78]

Carmageddon was my First open world game.

[@Emulator_Crossing]

very impressive for its time.

[@tahustvedt]

The first open world racing game I played was probably Test Drive 3.

[@Robloxian182]

Damn! That's pretty futuristic for 1989! Also, great review! No dislikes yet! :D

[@vwestlife]

The graphics remind me of a flight simulator that never gets off the ground.

[@ldisc66]

Man I've seen ads for this game back in the day, but never actually seen the product in computer shop shelves.

[@SmexyWells]

Spectrum Holobyte ftw!!

[@swatttttttt420]

man i miss this game

[@Exsorthious]

God. I haven't herd that need for speed music in sooo long. Going to play it right now!

[@noahcooperider2806]

It's so interesting to go back and watch "Old LGR" videos. I know you're a big channel now, but as someone who has been with you for a few years, I've always wondered what kind of microphone you used back in the day?

[@niceandgames]

Wow, really interesting game! Enjoyed flattening the flat pedestrians. Too bad about the sound, but I'm always a sucker for plain ol' polygons. I really like how the other cars look with the thick black lines around the edges, it's like a combo of cel-shaded and flat polygons...awesome. Glad they included the famous gas station, too. :)

[@phmaximus]

i remember that game as a kid.... it was sooo hard

[@DosGamerMan]

What a classic

[@bluestune_1981]

awesome

[@IIDeCkArDII1]

....Still Cool In 2022 Clint :D...All The Best For Yer Future _ IIDeCkArDII Out!

[@maestroparodi]

not mentioned: 2-player mode has a Tag game, in which you have to track down and crash into your opponent. And there were some Easter eggs, such as driving into Alameda (across the bay bridge) to see the Spectrum Holobyte offices... it was a great place to hide when playing tag.

[@HiddenPalm]

I may have been the first person in my neighborhood to game in a network because of this game. When I first played this game it was in a green monochrome monitor and it was laggy as hell, because this was like a next generation game, lol! Then I made a more powerful AT and got a CGA monitor, and then it was all over .... until the EGA games came out ... and then the VGA games ... OMG!!! VGA GAMES!!! That was like the future!

[@MapleBalls]

HiddenPalm Yea man, I remember feeling good about being able to select " VGA " in the options screens. It was a big difference.

[@workbusiness9326]

Played this in the 90s

[@tomstorm255]

Awesome