Test Drive

Test Drive, released by Accolade in 1987, holds a special place as one of the games that popularized the idea of driving exotic dream cars from behind the wheel. Rather than racing rivals around a track, it put you in a first-person cockpit view and dropped you onto a treacherous mountain road, tasking you with driving as fast as you dared past slower traffic and the ever-watchful police.

Its appeal was the fantasy of the machines themselves. You could choose from a lineup of coveted supercars of the era, including the Lamborghini Countach, Porsche 911 Turbo, Ferrari Testarossa, Lotus Esprit and Chevrolet Corvette. Each was presented with a dashboard view complete with a working gearstick you had to shift manually, and cars handled differently enough that picking your favourite mattered. Push too hard on the winding cliffside road and you would spin out, crash in a shower of glass, or get pulled over by the cops.

By modern standards it is crude, with repetitive scenery and stiff controls, but in 1987 the sensation of speed and the roster of forbidden cars were intoxicating, and it launched one of the longest-running franchises in racing games. As a historical artifact it is fascinating, and its manual-shifting, white-knuckle mountain runs still convey why it captured so many imaginations.