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 1994, 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. It is known for its unique balance of arcade and simulation-based racing.

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), rally racing game which utilized an overhead, or “birds-eye” perspective. Rally Racer later gained a sequel, Rally Racer ‘87 (1987)

In 1989, ACS introduced the S-16 System arcade board, which allowed pseudo-3D sprite graphics by way of sprite scaling, 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), Hyper Moto (1991), and Top Speed GP 2 (1992). The S-16 was later discontinued in 1993 to pave the way for ACS’ next pursuit: polygonal 3D.

ACS released Blazin’ Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing in 1994 as the first game for their new polygonal 3D arcade system, the TGX Modeller. 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, Ferrari and Chevrolet. Some brands, such as Porsche, have been represented only once in the entire series as a result of licensing issues.

Alongside Sentoki, Blazin’ Wheels has often been used by ACS tqo 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 200. Most recently, Blazin’ Wheels: HyperDrive (2016) was released as the inaugural title for their System 203: ATLANTIS 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 4 tracks (with an extra 2 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.

The original Blazin’ Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing (1994) 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: Velocity (2002), 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.

To circumvent the problem of too much tracks to race in a single arcade run, Blazin’ Wheels 2000 introduced the “cup” system, which splits all the race tracks into three cups: the Asian Cup, the American Cup and the European Cup (later installments added an Australian Cup). Each cup has five tracks, which the player has to win in order to clear said cup. Each cup also denotes the difficulty of the tracks, with the Asian Cup being the easiest, and the European Cup being the hardest.

Soundtrack
Blazin’ Wheels features an original soundtrack composed by ACS’ talented 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.

Western console releases of Blazin’ Wheels, starting with Blazin’ Wheels 2000/Millenium (2000) would always replace all of the original soundtrack with a set of licensed tracks from various artists of different genres, from hip-hop, to rock, to metal, to electronica.

Main article: Blazin' Wheels/Soundtracks

Main Series

 * Blazin' Wheels: Super High-Speed Racing (1994; 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 System 200), PlayStation 2, XBox, Gamecube) Blazin' Wheels: RPM


 * (2004; Arcade (ACS System 200), 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)

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: Portable GT (2005; PlayStation Portable)


 * Blazin' Wheels: Portable GT2 (2007; PlayStation Portable)


 * Blazin' Wheels: Portable GT3 (2009; PlayStation Portable)


 * Blazin' Wheels i / A (2011; iOS, Android)


 * Blazin' Wheels 3D (2012; Nintendo 3DS)


 * Blazin' Wheels Vita (2012; PlayStation Vita)


 * Blazin' Wheels 3D-2 (2014; Nintendo 3DS)


 * Blazin' Wheels Vita 2 (2014; PlayStation Vita)


 * Blazin' Wheels: Nitro (2015; iOS, Android)

Trivia
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