Backfire!

Backfire! is a late arcade release from Data East, dated March 1995, and one of the company's last attempts to compete in a genre that Sega owned at the time. It is a rally racer in full 3D: you pick one of two fictional cars, the Farco R4 Cup or the Andula 2.0, and set out to win the Grand Champion title.

The structure is pure arcade. Six stages await, grouped in pairs by difficulty — two beginner, two medium, two expert — and the game only lets you continue if you beat the time limits. The stages vary their scenery, and instead of laps around a circuit you drive rally-style from point A to point B, so what you memorise is a sequence of corners rather than a loop. The original cabinet also offered a two-player split-screen duel.

The driving itself is brisk and uncomplicated: accelerate, brake, shift, slide. The handling model has no simulation ambitions; the car responds instantly and mistakes cost you seconds rather than crashes. Those seconds are the real opponent here — the later time limits are set without mercy, and you will not clear the expert stages without knowing the road ahead.

Honestly, Backfire! was not the top of its class in 1995 and time has not changed that. Next to Sega Rally, released the same year, it looks rougher and its driving model is shallower. But as a quick five-minute burn it still works, and for Data East fans it is an interesting document from the period when the company was winding down its arcade era. Precious few mid-nineties rally cabinets survive outside of arcades at all.

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