Whoops. Bit of a case of deja vu here. Remember last ish we splashed out on a corkendous Complete Guide To Driving Sims, with all the usual mini-reviews, revised percentages and wotnot? Well, guess what's just plonked itself rather smugly onto my desk. That's right - a driving game compilation! With Chase HQ, Hard Drivin', Power Drift AND Turbo OutRun! (Cripes.)
    Actually, it's not as bad as that - JD only covered a couple of them. "Very, very good" exclaimed the YS lonely heart about Chase, giving it a whopping 93° (and very deservedly too), while "state-of-the-art" Hard had to settle for a slightly more modest 84°. If you want to read the full reviews check out last issue. In the meantime, let's take a look at the other two, eh?
    
Power Drift
"81°," said Whistlin' Rick, and, by Jingo, that's what it got. Reviewed back in January, it's a road-roller based on an old Sega arcade game, with you grasping the sweaty steering-wheel of a dune buggy as you battle it out against 12 opponents. Cars zoom in and out of lanes, the ever-more-difficult bends gobble you up with frustrating regularity, and with a total of 25 tracks it's all a lot of fun. It does have some slightly dodgy collision detection, but it's hardly the kind of duffer you usually get stuck onto the end of compilations. In fact, it's rather spiffy actually.
    '90 Rating: 81°
    
Turbo OutRun
If any of the games deserve such an ignominious accolade it'd be this US Gold sequel to OutRun, which received a meagre 70° by David in February. Alterations to the rolling-road original include 16 snowy/rainy/sunny courses, bumps, barriers and a temperamental Ferrari F-40 engine that gets mighty narked off if you heat it up too much. But 'Turbo'? More like 'Turdo' - all you get is a plume of smoke and some pitiful acceleration! The view from behind your car doesn't help either, often obscuring the opponents you can bump into (which look about half the sprite-size anyway!), and there's an unhealthy dose of bad collision detection and glitchy graphics. Why couldn't they have bunged in Stunt Car Racer instead?
    '90 Rating: 70°
    
You can't argue that these games aren't bang up-to-date. With the exception of Turbo OutRun, each was a competitor in the frantic big-bucks run-up to last Christmas, since when there's been a surprising dearth of vroom-vroom releases. It's therefore impossible to compare them against any contemporary standard (so Chase still leads the pack). All the top-notch 1990 products like Days Of Thunder, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge and Chase HQ's sequel SCI are sitting tight for Santa in much the same way as these games were last year, so until they come out these are just about the best driving games you're gonna get. Definitely good value, your interest will depend on which of them you've already got.

Ratings given by other magazines

7/10

Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database

YS Cross-references
		Chase HQ/Ocean	YS41	NEWS
		Chase HQ/Ocean	YS46	FUT
		Chase HQ/Ocean	YS47	PRE
		Chase HQ/Ocean	YS50	94
		Chase HQ (in The YS Complete Guide To Driving Games)	YS59	93
		Chase HQ (in Power Up)	YS66	92
		Chase HQ/Hit Squad	YS73	93
		Chase HQ (in The YS Official Top 100 Part 4)	YS73	No.22
		Hard Drivin'/Domark	YS47	FUT
		Hard Drivin'/Domark	YS48	PRE
		Hard Drivin'/Domark	YS49	90
		Hard Drivin' (in TNT)	YS58	81
		Hard Drivin' (in The YS Complete Guide To Driving Games)	YS59	84
		Hard Drivin'/Hit Squad	YS75	62
		Power Drift/Activision	YS47	PRE
		Power Drift/Activision	YS49	82
		Power Drift/Hit Squad	YS72	90
		Turbo OutRun/US Gold	YS48	FUT
		Turbo OutRun/US Gold	YS50	70
		Turbo OutRun/Kixx	YS73	66
Some info from Sinclair Infoseek+SPOT*ON