Racing Destruction Set, Electronic Arts | Commodore 64 Game Review

[@MrTangent]

Played the hell out of this game in the mid/late 80’s. One of my favorite games of all time!

[@RoadRage810]

I played this constantly back in the day and still play it on my original 64. Armor protects against mines, crusher is basically under vehicle "armor" that does damage to your opponent if you land on top of them from a jump.

[@CubicleNate]

That is great insight on the armor and crusher, thank you! I still enjoy this game, it really is well done. I think the big win is the ability to create your own tracks so there is really no end to the variety of fun you can have with a nearly 40 year old game!

[@rickkoenig3621]

Thank you for the very nice review, the lunar rovers were to used for the 'testing forks' part of the game. I had a track called 'forks' that had about 10 forks. The lunar rover had to drive slow so it wouldn't miss any forks. One wrong turn and you had to go all over again. You can race a Canam against an AI lunar rover and loose the game because you picked the wrong fork. Slow and steady wins the game.

[@CubicleNate]

That IS fascinating. I still love RDS, sure, I don't play it every day but periodically I have a need for a hit of nostalgia. This always does it for me. I have logged so many hours of fun, largely in doing track construction. I have so many questions about the design and building out of The greatest 8-bit racing game, the discussions around its various elements and the like. Was there ever a sequel discussed? How about more CPU racers? I imagine the game was already pushing the limits of the C64 as it was. Thank you for the great childhood memories.

[@SPDLST]

Hey Nate! Great video man. I never heard of this game. I'm going to have to try it on my TheC64.

[@CubicleNate]

Thanks! I do enjoy it on TheC64 very much. I hope you enjoy it!

[@8_Bit]

Great review of a game I have many good memories of. We also used the Can-Am almost exclusively; it's too bad there wasn't better balance between the vehicles. But on the other hand, they left it up to the players to choose the vehicles themselves so it can be an even match-up if you want. The lunar rover must have just been put in for a joke, inspired by the Moon terrain? I haven't tried it for so long, but I thought the rover was at least fairly playable with Moon gravity, or is it terrible even there? I had forgotten about the Abstract graphics... it looks like 10 PRINT!! Thanks Nate, I really enjoyed the video.

[@gary2984234]

Rover vs CanAm can be good if you are using land mines. You will be going slow, but if you both continue to get hit by the mines. the Rover holds up much better than the canam. Eventually the Rover will be move faster than the Canam if memory serves me correct.

[@hammettl]

This was one of my most played games as a kid. I played this every day with my brother for an entire year at least.

[@CubicleNate]

@@hammettl I understand. I played this for years and still enjoy it!

[@fakshen1973]

This game and Mig Alley Ace were twobof my favorite head-to-head games to play against my brother when we were kids. Of course, we had copies of them that were not purchased. :)

[@CyberKnightt]

Good video, I too spent a ton of time enjoying this game as a kid. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Adventure Construction Set. Similar in how customizable it is but otherwise a completely different game. It had just as horrendous load times.

[@josneira1827]

still to this day one of my fav ever racing games and it took forever to load lol..., and i have grown to hate arcade games now i'm all strategy and simulation these days, but this game in 2 player when you design your own courses, was awesome all it needed was to have more players allowing junctiobns and short cuts or erm long cuts lol, was genius i designed some really fan tracks at the time jull of areas of mud and junctions to catch the player out which when battling did most of the time lol, thx for the nostalgia

[@Dan-in-Virginia]

I also played the hell out of this game, building tracks and racing friends. This is a terrific game that deserves a modern day remake.

[@CubicleNate]

That's fantastic! When you say "modern day remake" what do you envision?

[@stevenanderson3205]

I wonder if this is available for the Raspberry pi 4 since we last talked i got an adapter HDMI to VGA for my moms 2006 Dell monitor and i am using the pi with it its perfect for that monitor twister os comes with a bunch of games and i am using twister only now on the pi anyway things are going well with the pi happy to see this video it gives me more pi idea's.

[@CubicleNate]

I am willing to bet you can download this game without a problem. There is a link on my site to the .D81 image that will allow this to work smashingly well with the VICE emulator.

[@stevenanderson3205]

@@CubicleNate Thank you.

[@kevinguise5024]

Loved this game.

[@deadscenerecords]

The lunar rover is funny. Use it once. Laugh. Move on. That is what I remember about it.

[@CubicleNate]

I sure wish you could have done just a bit more with it.

[@deadscenerecords]

Yeah, that would have been cool. I still enjoy the humor of it. Both parties could agree to drive lunar rovers, although that still seems like a tedious undertaking as well. At least it's a fair race. And if gravity is set to moon, well... truth is we never tried that approach. Or perhaps we did, and I just don't recall. LOL

[@vasosandrea3532]

I aways wanted this game but i couldn't afford it and i never really played it just a little at w.h Smith's, seejng this video is joyful and i did not know how many opportunities you have on such a master piece this game really is and how much work was put into it making this a 100% in my books