Road Rash 3
The final Genesis Road Rash, racing worldwide with weapons.
Road Rash 3 is a 1995 racing and vehicular combat game published by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis. It is the fourth installment in the Road Rash series and the last to be released for that platform. The game sends players through a worldwide series of motorcycle races where they must finish in third place or higher while using unarmed and armed combat to hinder opponents.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Monkey Do Productions
- Publisher
- Electronic Arts
- Director
- Nana Chambers
- Producer
- Randy Breen
- Designer
- Steve Murray
- Mike Lopez
- David Costa
- Aaron McClay
- Mike Hensley
- Programmer
- Dan Geisler, Warren Holfeld
- Artist
- Michael Shirley
- Michael Hulme
- Lara Bowen
- Peggy Brennan
- Sung Moon Kwon
- Barbara Meyers
- Irene Pena
- Jeffery Stokol
- Writer
- Jamie Poolos
- Bill Scheppler
- Marti McKenna
- David Lee
- Valerie Hanscom
- Paul Armatta
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The player controls a motorcycle racer who must place third or better among fourteen opponents to advance. The game has five levels, each requiring five race wins to progress. Races occur in Australia, Kenya, Japan, Italy, Brazil, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The racer can brake, accelerate, and attack nearby opponents. A default input punches the nearest opponent; holding a directional button produces a backhand or kick. Some opponents carry weapons such as clubs, chains, nunchaku, crowbars, mace, cattle prods, and oil cans. These can be taken if the racer strikes the opponent while the weapon is being swung. The racer can hold multiple weapons and cycle through them. The mace, cattle prod, and oil can have ten charges each and are discarded when empty. Crashing into an obstacle or losing all stamina ejects the racer from the bike. The racer then runs back automatically, though the player can steer with the directional buttons or stand still by holding the brake. Opponents are also ejected when their stamina depletes; the nearest opponent's stamina appears in the bottom-right corner. The racer starts with $1,000 and earns cash prizes. A shop offers bikes with different weight, speed, and steering. The player can buy a new bike or upgrade the current one in engine, chassis, tires, and suspension, each once per bike. Some bikes have nitrous oxide charges activated by double-tapping the acceleration. A password is given after each successful race to continue progress. The player moves to the next level after winning on five of the seven tracks.
Development and release
After Road Rash II, series co-creator and programmer Dan Geisler planned to leave EA for Crystal Dynamics, feeling undercompensated and believing the Genesis technology was exhausted. He stayed after negotiating a significant upfront payment. While working on Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, Geisler encountered EA Vice President of Marketing Bing Gordon and offered to create Road Rash 3, arguing it could be made faster and be more commercially successful. Gordon agreed. Development began in March 1994, with Nana Chambers as director and Randy Breen as producer. The game was developed alongside the 3DO version of Road Rash, sharing production assets, especially gameplay sprites. Artist Michael Hulme was recruited from Cinemaware and told this would be EA's final Genesis title. EA's marketing division wanted a major new feature despite the hardware's limits. Hulme suggested worldwide settings to take the series somewhere new, painting ten rough concepts in four days; these were reduced to seven for the final game. Don Veca created the audio. Road Rash 3 was shown at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show and released in North America and Europe in March 1995. It was the last Road Rash game for the Genesis. A promotional sweepstakes by GamePro and Best Buy offered a grand prize of a trip to San Francisco to see Monster Magnet, a Sega Genesis console, and a copy of the game.
Reception
Road Rash 3 received generally positive reviews but lacked the critical acclaim of earlier series entries. GamePro's Bacon praised the variety of weapons and tracks and the tight controls complementing the bike-upgrading feature, but criticized the unwieldy weapon-cycling mechanic and felt the two-player mode was less responsive than the single-player campaign. He noted enhanced visual realism and slick sprites but called the music annoyingly peppy and the sound effects often silly. Gary Lord of Computer and Video Games and Neil West of Game Players considered the game essentially the same as previous entries despite visual and gameplay enhancements. West found the visuals dated despite extra animations and scenery, described the soundtrack as nifty and sound effects convincing, but questioned the absence of the grunge soundtrack from the 3DO version. Gus Swan and Steve Merrett of Mean Machines Sega deemed it the fastest and most refined installment but dated compared to Ridge Racer and Daytona USA, and cited Skitchin' as a more original take. They noted increased crispness and size of graphics and audio variety, but Merrett saw colors as dreadfully washed out and derided the music. Chris Gore of VideoGames called it the best one yet, praising the violent gameplay and realistic backgrounds, but found the music okay. A Next Generation reviewer applauded the animations, track layouts from the 3DO version, new weapons, and bike enhancer mode. According to Randy Breen, Road Rash 3 outsold previous Genesis titles. It was the fourth-highest renting Genesis title at Blockbuster Video in its opening month and charted in the top ten for five subsequent months, re-entering for three months in 1996 and eleven months in 1997. In GamePro's 1995 Readers' Choice Awards, it won Best Racing Sim (16-Bit Games) with 55% of the vote.
More in Electronic Arts Games of the 1990s
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