Autocrash

Autocrash came out in 1991 from the Spanish studio Zigurat and belongs to the final crop of what is known as the golden age of Spanish software. The premise is simple and bloodthirsty at once: a death tournament held in arenas full of bumper cars — a gladiatorial mutation of the fairground dodgem ride, watched from directly overhead.

Each round drops you into an arena with several rivals, and this is no race: the goal is to be the last one standing. You ram your opponents until they are knocked out of their little cars — and that is not the end of it, because you then have to run the ejected driver down before he manages to flee the combat zone. The tournament escalates steadily: more opponents appear, their AI toughens up, and some rounds require you to eliminate enemies in a prescribed order, which turns mindless crashing into a surprisingly tactical affair — you keep track of whom you are allowed to hit and whom to merely avoid for now.

The controls are pure arcade and the game runs in a two-dimensional top-down view over a scrolling arena. The DOS release arrived alongside ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions and carries the typical signature of Spanish conversions: modest graphics, no ornaments, immediate action above all.

In all honesty, this is a one-idea game. Smashing into rivals is briefly intoxicating, but the rounds differ mainly in the number and toughness of opponents, so repetition sets in fast. Finishing off fleeing drivers does give the game its juice, though, along with a streak of black humour that big Western releases of the day would not have dared — enough for an afternoon of malicious fun. As a snapshot of the confident Spanish scene just before its end, Autocrash has documentary value too.

You can open the arena on oldgame.cz straight in your browser, nothing to install.