Continental Circus, the Video Game by Taito Corp. [Japan]

DESCRIPTION

KEYWORDS :

Type of the machine : Video Game
Continental Circus © 1987 Taito.

A Formula One racing game in which the player races over a number of International Grand Prix circuits, trying to complete each lap before the time limit expires. Continental Circus features Pit-stops and dynamic weather; the latter in the form of rain.

If the player's car is hit by either a rival car or strikes a trackside barrier, the car will be damaged and begin to smoke. The player must 'pit' at the earliest opportunity to get the car repaired, otherwise the fire will spread and the car will eventually explode. Should the player's car have a second collision before the Pit-stop is reached, the car to explode, wasting precious time before a replacement car appears.

Contintal Circus' Grand Prix tracks are as follows :
brazil

BRAZIL / Brazil GP - Qualified Rank 80
america

AMERICA / U.S.A GP - Qualified Rank 60
france

FRANCE / French GP - Qualified Rank 50
monaco

MONACO / Monaco GP - Qualified Rank 40
germany

GERMANY / Germany GP - Qualified Rank 30
spain

SPAIN / Spain GP - Qualified Rank 20
mexico

MEXICO / Mexico GP - Qualified Rank 10
japan

JAPAN / Japan GP - Qualified Rank 3

TECHNICAL

CABINET :

Taito Z System hardware
Board Number : K1100351A
Prom Stickers : B33

Main CPU : (2x) 68000 (@ 12 Mhz)
Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 4 Mhz)
Sound Chips : YM2610 (@ 8 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 320 x 224 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 4096

Players : 1
Control : Steering wheel
Buttons : 8

TRIVIA

Like Nintendo's 1981 classic, "Donkey Kong", Continental Circus was the victim of a mistake during the translation from Japanese to English. The game was orginally to be called 'Continental Circuits'. All the artwork on the US games was later corrected to say 'Continental Circuit' but the original Taito PCBs are clearly labeled with the epithet, 'Circus'. Note : F1 is often called the 'F1 circus' because it is like a big circus that travels to different cities across different continents.

Continental Circus was unique at the time in that certain cabinets came supplied with a '3D visor', through which the player viewed the action. The visor, similar in outward appearance to the one used in Atari's "Battlezone", produced a simple but effective 3D effect. This effect could be disabled by the arcade operator via the dip switch settings.

This game was released outside US 2 years later (in 1989).

The race car driven by the player is the 1987 Camel-sponsored Honda/Lotus 99T Formula 1 car as driven by Ayrton Senna (1960-1994) and Satoru Nakajima. Sponsor names such as 'Camel' and 'DeLonghi' are misspelled deliberatly to prevent copyright infringement under Japanese law.

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Kyukyoku Tiger : G.S.M. Taito 2 - D28B0008) on 21/11/1988.