It’s been a long, arduous road. In fact, it’s a downright miracle that I made it this far and still remain one step ahead of the blood-thirsty cabal of ninja assassins hunting me down. If not for my rapacious wit and pristine physical stature, I’m sure I would have been mincemeat by now. But it’s taken a toll like you wouldn’t believe, not just on my mental state but on my wallet as well.
Life on the run — furnishing safe houses and fashioning makeshift disguises and weapons — costs a shit ton of cash. I fear I may not have much left in the old gas tank at this point.
That said, I still have a job to do, and damn it if I’m not going to do it. Though the Luck Dynasty might wish to feast upon my head and severed genitals, I must continue to review classic arcade games until that head-and-genital-feasting luxury is afforded them. It’s not just for the sake of meeting a deadline for a website I don’t get paid to write for, nor is it for the piles upon piles of fan mail I receive every day at my base of operations (which, now that I think about it, must be in shambles by this point).
No, I do it for the children.
But I digress, as digression comes easy when one is hiding for one’s life, moving from shadow to shadow, hovel to hovel. For today, I bring to you another solid racer in a long line, coming from the arcade racing master Sega. Seriously, this company dominated the genre and the arcade scene in general for a while, and Super Hang-On is no exception to either of these rules.
In it, you must take to the roadways of the world and race other people on crotch rockets. After all, you seek fame and glory and just a little respite from the Dale Lucks out there, who are always scheming up ways to eviscerate you.
The controls are tight and the graphics are crisp. The sense of speed is admirable and the music is pumpin’. In many ways Super Hang-On closely resembles Out Run, and pretty much every other Sega racer of the time. But that isn’t a bad thing if you like great classic arcade racing action.
On a personal note, I have been badly wounded as I fell off a barstool in a drunken stupor. I pray I will make it through the night and find the justice I seek for speaking my opinion about that lousy game (or, more accurately, what can only loosely be described as a game), Gridlee. If I don’t make it, tell your neighbor three houses down and buy an extra gallon of milk on your next shopping trip to help my memory live on.
We must let Dale Luck know that he may dine on my flesh, but he will never consume my heart or my soul. Unless he eats my heart and my scrotum, in which case he very much will have.