Blazin' Wheels

Blazin’ Wheels is a series of 3D racing games developed by Digital Revolution and published by ACS. The series began with the release of its first installment, Blazin’ Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing, in 1995, and has spawned a number of sequels. Originally for Arcades, it has since been released for various consoles, including the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, XBox, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 4, XBox ONE, Nintendo Switch, Samsung Zeo, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita and PC.

Alongside their fighting games and the Spunky series, Blazin’ Wheels is one of ACS’ most popular franchises.

History
Prior to creating the Blazin’ Wheels series, ACS released various arcade racing games during the 80s and early 90s. Their first racing game was Rev n’ Ride (1983), a side-scrolling motocross racing game, which was then followed by Rally Racer (1985), a rally car racing game which utilized an overhead, or “birds-eye” perspective.

In 1989, ACS introduced the Hyper-V System arcade board, which allowed pseudo-3D sprite graphics by way of sprite scaling technology, similar to those seen in Sega’s OutRun and Taito’s Chase H.Q. ACS released a bunch of racing games for the system, including Top Speed GP (1989), Hype Moto (1991), and Top Speed GP 2 (1992). The Hyper-V was later discontinued in 1993 to pave the way for ACS’ next pursuit: polygonal 3D.

ACS released Blazin’ Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing in April 10, 1995 as the first game for their new polygonal 3D arcade system, the TGX Modeller, which was based on the hardware of Sony's PlayStation game console. The game was praised for its fully textured graphics and tight gameplay, and became a huge success in arcades, and eventually recieved ports for the PlayStation and PC the following year.

Originally developed by ACS Production Studio Tokyo, the game’s development team eventually became its own studio, Digital Revolution, in 1999. The Digital Revolution development studio is currently owned by ACS.

The first three Blazin’ Wheels titles did not feature original cars, and instead featured generic cars designed after real-life cars. Blazin’ Wheels 2000/Millenium (2000) was the first in the series to feature licensed cars. Car brands featured in the Blazin’ Wheels games range from Asian companies like Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and Suzuki, to European luxury car companies such as BMW, Volkswagen, Mini and Chevrolet.

Alongside Sentoki, Blazin’ Wheels has often been used by ACS to showcase the capabilities of their newest arcade board. For example, Blazin’ Wheels 2000/Millenium (2000) was the first game for the NOVA System hardware, while Blazin’ Wheels: High Octane (2006) was the first game for the System 201. Most recently, Blazin’ Wheels: Speed King (2020) was released as the inaugural title for their System 204: CASSIOPEIA system.

Gameplay
The game plays similarly to most racing games of its time. Players select their car, choose between Manual or Automatic transmission, and race through several tracks against 7 more competing cars in order to win 1st place amd move on to the next track. Getting on the first three places in a race would allow the player to move on to the next tracks, whereas failing to obtain at least 3rd place would lead to the player losing and a Game Over screen. In the arcade original, the game only had 3 tracks (with an extra 3 added on the console versions) and 4 selectable cars (with another 4 added in the console versions). Over the course of each installment, the number of playable tracks and cars have gradually multiplied.

Aside from racing against competition, the player also needs to bypass another obstacle in the form of traffic. Over the course of the race, several computer-controlled cars and trucks which aren't part of the race would appear in front or behind and obstruct the player's right of way, forcing the player to overtake them to carry on. The traffic setting can be turned off via test mode in the arcade vedsion or the Options mode in console ports.

As an arcade racing game, players not only have to race against rival cars, but also after a time limit. To extend the time limit, the player must pass through various checkpoints scattered throughout all the tracks. When the player runs outof time, the race is automatically lost and the player wil be sent to a Game Over screen. Thus, the player needs to reach the checkpoints as fast as they could by avoiding bumping on corners, enemy cars and traffic as much as they could.

The original Blazin’ Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing (1995) arcade game was a single-player only game. Blazin’ Wheels 2 (1996) was the first game in the series to integrate multiplayer. By linking four machines within each other, the game can support as much a 8 players. Console versions of Blazin’ Wheels often support multi-tap to allow up to four players to compete in a race against each other. Online play was later introduced in Blazin’ Wheels: RPM (2004), with the arcade version being one of the first ACS games to support the prorietary Amaze.net online service, and the console versions including support for the PS2 and XBox’s respective online components.

The race tracks in Blazin' Wheels are usually based on actual real-life expressways and passes. In particular, the design of the race tracks in the original Blazin' Wheels was based on the real-life Shuto Expressway. Later games in the series eventually expanded their reach to incorporate other countries.

Soundtrack
Blazin’ Wheels features an original soundtrack composed by ACS’ in-house composers. The first two games featured upbeat synth music similar to those from Sega’s Daytona USA (1993) and Namco’s Ridge Racer (1993), while later games starting with Blazin’ Wheels III (1998) showcased a more techno-influenced soundtrack.

Main Series

 * Blazin' Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing (1995; Arcade (ACS TGX Modeller System), PlayStation, PC)
 * Blazin' Wheels 2 (1996; Arcade (ACS TGX Modeller System), PlayStation)
 * Blazin' Wheels III (1998; Arcade (ACS TGX2 Modeller System), PlayStation)
 * Blazin' Wheels 2000 / Blazin' Wheels Millennium Overdrive (2000; Arcade (ACS NOVA System), PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color)
 * Blazin' Wheels: Velocity (2002; Arcade (ACS NOVA System), PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube)
 * Blazin' Wheels: RPM (2004; Arcade (ACS NOVA-II System), PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube)
 * Blazin' Wheels: High Octane (2006; Arcade (ACS System 201), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii)
 * Blazin' Wheels: High Octane 2 (2008; Arcade (ACS System 201), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii)
 * Blazin' Wheels: Over the Limit (2010; Arcade (ACS System 202: ENDYMION), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
 * Blazin' Wheels: Over the Limit 2 (2013; Arcade (ACS System 202: ENDYMION), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
 * Blazin' Wheels: HyperDrive (2016; Arcade (ACS System 203: ATLANTIS), PlayStation 4, Xbox ONE, Samsung Zeo)
 * Blazin' Wheels: HyperDrive Accel (2018; Arcade (System 203: ATLANTIS), PlayStation 4, Xbox ONE, Nintendo Switch, Samsung Zeo)
 * Blazin' Wheels: Speed Kings (2020; Arcade (System 204: CASSIOPEIA)

Spinoffs and Portable Titles

 * Blazin’ Wheels 64 (2001; Nintendo 64)
 * Blazin' Wheels Advance (2001; Game Boy Advance)
 * Blazin' Wheels Advance 2 (2003; Game Boy Advance)
 * Blazin' Wheels GO (2005; PlayStation Portable)
 * Blazin' Wheels GO 2 (2007; PlayStation Portable)
 * Blazin' Wheels GO 3 (2009; PlayStation Portable)
 * Blazin' Wheels: Rush (2011; iOS, Android)
 * Blazin' Wheels 3D (2012; Nintendo 3DS)
 * Blazin' Wheels GO: V-Powered (2012; PlayStation Vita)
 * Blazin' Wheels 3D-2 (2014; Nintendo 3DS)
 * Blazin' Wheels: Nitrous (2015; iOS, Android)