R.C. Pro-Am was one of the first games Tim and Chris Stamper’s new company, Rare, made for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the first to make a noise. It turned the radio-controlled model car, the kind The Games Machine pictured “scaring the wits out of little old ladies” in the park, into a racing game with weapons. When Nintendo Power printed its first readers’ and retailers’ poll in the summer of 1988, America’s games shops put R.C. Pro-Am at the top of their list, ahead of Ice Hockey and The Legend of Zelda.
Fast facts
- Developer: Rare; published by Nintendo.
- Released: 1988, for the NES: early in the year in North America, and in Britain by the summer.
- Players: one, racing three computer-controlled cars.
- Sequels: Super R.C. Pro-Am for the Game Boy (1991) and R.C. Pro-Am II for the NES (1992).
On the track
The player drives a small radio-controlled pick-up truck around a winding track, seen from slightly above and behind, so the course runs diagonally up the screen. Three computer cars race against it. Computer & Video Games counted 32 races, and to go on to the next one the player has to finish in the top three of the four cars.
The tracks are full of tricks. Computer Gaming World listed oil slicks and puddles, and “a huge metal wall that periodically shoots up from underground”. Computer & Video Games added skulls, and “zippers” on the track that throw the car forward in a short burst. The pick-ups along the way include special tyres, faster top speeds and better acceleration, and two kinds of weapon: missiles, which fire forwards, and bombs, which drop behind.
Letters lie on the track too. Collect enough to spell NINTENDO, and the player is given a faster vehicle; The Games Machine reported that the reward at the end of the line was an off-roader. The longer the game goes on, the worse the conditions get and the faster the opposition becomes, so falling behind without weapons is hard to recover from.
What the magazines said
Computer Gaming World named R.C. Pro-Am its best action game of 1988 on the Nintendo, and called it “one of the most compelling, addictive videogames ever published”. Its “only drawback”, the magazine said, was “its lack of a two-player mode”.
British readers had to import it or wait. In July 1988 Computer & Video Games reviewed it among five American Nintendo hits due in British shops by August. Its reviewer said he was “no fan of” racing games, “but the quality” had won him over, and he pointed out that the game came from “the Rare (ex-Ultimate to you and me) team”. The Games Machine had visited Rare earlier in the year, and in January 1989 it welcomed the game as “long-awaited (not least in the TGM office)”. Two years later, comparing another NES racer in January 1991, Mean Machines still called R.C. Pro-Am “the definitive NES racer”.
Sequels and later versions
Rare brought the series to the Game Boy as Super R.C. Pro-Am (1991), one of the first games for Nintendo’s four-player adapter; the link cable entry tells that story. R.C. Pro-Am II followed on the NES, published by Tradewest, with 24 tracks and a two-player mode in which each car carries weapons. In 2015 Microsoft, which had bought Rare in 2002, included R.C. Pro-Am in the Xbox One compilation Rare Replay.
Sources
- Nintendo Power issue 1, July/August 1988, pp. 103–104: Players’, Pros’ and Dealers’ picks; R.C. Pro-Am first among dealers; “It’s been a while since Nintendo had its last car racing game”.
- Computer & Video Games issue 81, July 1988, p. 109: review (32 tracks, top three of four, the power-ups and weapons, the hazards and zippers, the NINTENDO letters, “the Rare (ex-Ultimate to you and me) team”, “In the shops by August”).
- Computer Gaming World issue 53, November 1988, pp. 54 and 56: Video Gaming World awards, best action game, “one of the most compelling, addictive videogames ever published”, the lack of a two-player mode, the radio-controlled pick-up truck and its three computer opponents, the hazards and bonus items, the “slightly elevated side-view”.
- The Games Machine issue 14, January 1989, p. 33: review (“long-awaited (not least in the TGM office)”, three computer cars, the NINTENDO letters, the off-roader). Issue 21, August 1989, p. 96: the “1/24th scale remote control racing cars” behind the game.
- Mean Machines issue 4, January 1991, p. 86: “RC Pro Am still ranks as the definitive NES racer”.
- Nintendo Power issue 25, June 1991, p. 67: Super R.C. Pro-Am for the Game Boy. Issue 44, January 1993, p. 88: R.C. Pro-Am II from Tradewest, 24 tracks, two-player weapons.
- Wikipedia, “R.C. Pro-Am” (web, secondary): North American release in February 1988. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.C._Pro-Am
- Wikipedia, “Rare Replay” (web, secondary): the 2015 compilation and its contents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Replay