Reviews

1990 Zigurat Software (Spain)
by Fernando Briega, Carlos Martinez & Jorge Martinez

I hated this game back in the day and I still do. However, it does look and play quite good.
But some choices by the authors really spoil the game for me. For instance, the main menu as a bad redefining key option, which wrongly swaps right from left. So you lose some time figuring that out.
Then you start the game, and as expected you take your time to get the hang of the bike, that's OK, but you soon find out, that each time you crash, you have to wait that the race ends and all the bikes make their full laps, which can take quite some time. And this also happens in the qualifying events. Very annoying.

Anyway, Sito Pons was a Grand Prix motorcycle racer. He gathered some media attention back in the 80's, due to winning two 250cc races. He also competed in the 500cc category hence the title. In this game the races are viewed from an unusual angle, which gives the game some appeal, and looks quite cool. The scroll is not the best I've seen, in fact most Spanish games suffer from this. It's just functional enough. This is one of the spoiling factors for me. The racing itself is kinda fun, even addictive but, there are details that ruin the game. Like our bike, which looks exactly the same as the others, making you lose yourself in the crowd. Also the crashing and waiting for the race to end, which I already covered.
In the end, although this is a good racing game with some interesting technical details, I much rather prefer other similar titles, even older ones, like Full Throttle, with it's fantastic realistic smoothness.

Just discovered this one from a review on here, and lost myself playing it for a couple of hours.
A Spanish PC "isometric" motorbike game, bravely converted to the Speccy. Control is tricky but fair. Beginners are aided, and more proficient players challenged, with a choice of difficulty settings. It takes a bit of time in practice mode to master the bike and circuits, which is worth doing - as crashing during competitions can be a punishing and tedious experience.
As with most racing games, it probably hasn't aged well - there are better gaming choices more suited to the genre these days. But I reckon I would have spent some serious time with this, if I had access to it back in the day. It certainly looks good compared to some of the competition.
It is an ambitious game to release on the Speccy - and they get away with it. They didn't "nail it" though - the slick look and large graphics come at the expense of frame-rate. I do love the depth, look and technical challenge of this game - and would consider scoring it a 5, given its age and contemporaries - if it ran smoother. Ultimately, frame-rate is king in racing games, and this falls short in that department. A good game nonetheless.