Year:  1988

Developer:  Rare

Number of Players:  1

I was never a big fan of R.C. Pro-Am growing up since I was never good at it.  My brother was decent at it and used to play it quite a lot.  However, as time went on this game fell to the wayside as so many NES games that my brother and I grew up with did in favor of more newer and modern games.  Fast forward thirty or so years and now here I am wanting to play some of the games from our past and I come across this one.  So I convince my brother to play this one through to the end while I watched.  What we learned is that it wasn't completely are fault for not being great at this game but it's more of a issue that the game just cheats.

R.C. Pro-Am is pretty straightforward.  Each race has a certain amount of laps and your goal is to be in the top three by the end of the race.  The racetrack has permanent upgrades you can pick up for your vehicle along with weapons you can use against your opponents.  There are also track hazards that can cause you to crash along with temporary items that will give you a speed boost and temporary invincibility.  The main goal besides being in the top three is to collect a letter that is on each track.  The letters spell Nintendo and once you complete the word your car gets upgraded, your upgrades get reset to zero and you start the process over again.  This loop keeps repeating itself as the game has no end to it and the tracks will repeat themselves.

My biggest issue with this game is the how the A.I. races against you.  Early on in the game it isn't too bad, the A.I. puts up a challenge but it is easy to overcome them and win races.  When you get into the second tier cars and especially the third tier ones the game's difficulty shoots up up a huge margin.  The A.I. will out race you on every stage and a lot of times the yellow car seems to get a super speed boost out of nowhere and if you miss it it will out lap you and win the race.  The later stages require basically perfect driving or else you will lose the race.  Challenge is usually a good thing in games but this goes one into a stupid level of difficulty which makes the game almost no fun to play.

I always liked the graphics in this game.  Nothing in this game is incredibly detailed but I do like the bright graphics the game uses.  The music on the title screen and the little jingle between races is catchy while the sound effects are alright.  This is an early NES game so I am willing to forgive the graphics/audio and like I said it isn't really all that bad.

R.C. Pro-Am can be a fun game in short bursts.  Even with the cheating A.I., the game has some charm to it with it's graphics and menu music.  However, this game has very little to no replay value.  This is a game that once you play through all the stages there really is no reason to come back to this game.  This game has all the good and bad hallmarks of an early NES game.