Bad Lands, the Video Game by Atari Games Corp. [CA, USA]

Type of the machine : Video Game
Bad Lands © 1989 Atari Games.

It has been 50 years since the nuclear disaster. The sport of sprint racing is now a ruthless battle between armed cars. These races take place on tracks built in the ruins of the dangerous nuclear zone known only as the BADLANDS. It's all-out war on the track as players blast away at the drones (and each other) to finish first. Players shoot play-field targets for extra points and bonus missiles.

Bonus wrenches appear at regular intervals which can be collected and used to upgrade the player's vehicle. The available upgrades are : missiles, tires, turbo, increased speed, and shields. This was to be Atari's last game in the 'Sprint' series.

Game ID : 136074

Main CPU : 68000 (@ 7.15909 Mhz), M6502 (@ 1.789772 Mhz)
Sound Chips : YM2151 (@ 3.579545 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 336 x 240 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 256

Players : 2
Control : dial
Buttons : 2

First driving game 'kit' for the arcade.

Unlike its 2 most famous prequels, "Championship Sprint" and "Super Sprint", Bad Lands used a standard resolution monitor instead of the medium resolution monitor used in the past. This means the cars are somewhat larger and, because of this scale issue, the tracks feel smaller and more cramped than in other games in the series. As a result of this, only 3 cars compete, instead of the 4 vehicles that appeared in earlier games.

Bad Lands re-uses some of the sounds from Championship Sprint and Super Sprint, particularly notable when bonus wrenches are collected.

Gary Hatt holds the official record for this game with 146,080 points on June, 26, 1986.

1. Sprint 2 (1976)
2. Sprint 8 (1977)
3. Sprint 4 (1977)
4. Sprint One (1978)
5. Super Sprint (1986)
6. Championship Sprint (1986)
7. Bad Lands (1989)

Team Leader : John Ray
Staff : Norm Avellar, Sam Comstock, Brad Fuller, Tim Hubberstey, Glenn McNamara, Kris Moser, John Paul, Kelly Turner, Wade Winblad

Consoles :

Sony PlayStation 2 (2005, "Midway Arcade Treasures 3")
Microsoft XBOX (2005, "Midway Arcade Treasures 3")
Nintendo GameCube (2005, "Midway Arcade Treasures 3")

Computers :

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1990)
Commodore C64 (1990)
Atari ST (1990)
Commodore Amiga (1990)
Amstrad CPC
PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (2006, "Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition")

Game's rom.
Machine's picture.