The Race Against Time

The Race Against Time was published by Codemasters in 1988, catalogued here in its Commodore 64 version. It is no ordinary running title: the game was created in connection with the Sport Aid '88 charity campaign, which staged a worldwide run against hunger that year. As the runner, the player circles the continents to light symbolic flames and unite the world in a single race against the clock.

In play terms it is a third-person action-adventure: running across a sprawling multi-country map is complemented by simple item puzzles that open the way forward. By the standards of Codemasters, then famous mainly for cheap simulators of every description, this was an unusually ambitious project with a serious mission.

Games tied to charitable causes were a rarity in the eighties — The Race Against Time stands among the first attempts to use home computers in support of a global campaign. That alone earns it a place in history, regardless of how period reviews treated it.

The Commodore 64 gave the game its typically colourful graphics and brisk scrolling. It is a single-player title whose structure rewards knowledge of the map — exactly in the spirit of action-adventures of the day.

Sport Aid '88 was no marginal event — it followed the famous musical fundraisers of the mid-eighties, with runs held in hundreds of cities worldwide. The game shipped simultaneously for several home computers to reach the widest possible audience, and part of the proceeds went directly to the charitable cause it promoted.

On OldGame.cz this run around the world launches straight in your browser, so you can carry the symbolic torch yourself.