Ironman

Super Off Road, or Ironman, how is best known, is a racing game published in 1990 by Virgin Interactive Entertainment.  It's an incredibly simple game, which has become a true classic because of its great addictive potential.  It was also released for arcade and today (2002) is still possible to find it in some low-budget video games rooms. 

The game itself is a series of races, in which participate four trucks.  By default, you drive the red one, the yellow one (Hurricane), is driven by Earl Stratton, the blue one (Jammin’) by John Morgan, and the gray one, the best of all, is driven by the ineffable Ivan Stewart, the Ironman, a character on whose the game was based.  Up to three players can play at once, the second  driver with the blue truck, and the third, using a joystick, with the yellow one.  The Ironman stands as the rival to defeat.  If you want to know who Morgan and Stratton are, take a look on the credits .

The winner of each race is the first to finish 4 laps.  He gets a prize of $100.000, the second place is awarded with $90.000, the third with $80.000 and the last only gets $70.000.  With this money you can buy additions for the trucks at the Speed Shop.  These improve notoriously the performance and are:

- Nitros:  You pay $10.000 for each one. They are used during the races to give an extra impulse.  These can be the difference between life and death.
- Accelerators: $80.000 for each one.  As its name indicates, increase the   acceleration capability of the trucks.
- Top speed:  It the most expensive item, $100.000.  As you can guess, increase the maximum speed that the trucks can reach.
- Shocks:  Each set costs $60.000.  They reduce the impact when you pass over a bump.

You can buy 'till 5 sets of each item (except for the nitros, up to 99).  That way, completely equipping the truck costs $1.400.000, that is a good number of races won.

During the races appears bags containing money or nitros, they are took by the first runner who step on them.  The quantities increase each time, this means, the first bag contains $10.000, the second $20.000, the third $30.000, and so on.  After several years playing this game, I have never found a bag containing more than $50.000, so I guess that's the limit.  It's the same for the nitros, I haven't get more than 5 at once.

For surviving, you must win each race.  If you don't finish in the first place, you lose a credit.  When you run out of credits, the game is over.  You can buy the credits again by pressing [F1] for the red truck or [F5] for the blue one.  Each credit costs $250.000.  You can also spend the credits as money at the Speed Shop, but they only represent $170.000, a very bad business; moreover, you put in risk you permanence in the game, because you never know when you're going to make a mistake in the last lap, losing the race and the life.

The races last 50 seconds in average (not using nitros), though each time the times get shorter.  In the game there are 8 tracks , but to be able to run in a new one, you have to go over all the past tracks, and each time you run in a new one, the series start again.  As result of this, the number of tracks you have to run is the summary from 1 to n, being n the number of the track.    For n=8, that is, to reach the last track, you have to run 36 races previously.  Due to this system, the first track is run a lot of times more than the others.  Each time you complete a cycle, the direction of the tracks changes, starting anti-clockwise.

Usually, the races end this way:  you arrives first, Ironman is second, Jammin' in the third place and Hurricane is the last one.  However, sometimes the blue truck arrives the last, in fact, in a few rare occasions (some help is needed), Ivan Stewart, with his hateful gray truck finishes in the last place.

The game is not really hard, but it's always funny.  Personally, I have never been eliminated and only quit the game when I get bored, 'cause the option of buying new credits saves all the mistakes you can make in the races.  Moreover, the other drivers cannot use the nitros (obviously, If you're playing against a friend, he can use them).  It will be a different story if the Ironman could use his 10 nitros…

At the game start, you're asked for you're name initials (3), besides a bunch of stupid data such as your citizenship (you can choose only between American, Italian, German, British, French, Japanese, Canadian or Australian) and your birth date.  Nothing can be typed, you're forced to push 2 keys thousand of times to introduce the information.  After two or three times of doing this, you get bored and you start playing as AAA, with the first birth date and citizenship that appear.

This game is a true classic that you must play if you’re a racing games lover.  It’s not sold anymore, so you should go to one of those abandonware sites to get it.  If you don’t know what the hell is abandonware, go to Google right now and make a short search.  Sure you’ll be surprised.



2.  Tracks

The tracks are the soul of this game.  Click on any track to enlarge it.

2.1.  Sidewinder:
The first track, so it's the one you run more times.  It's not difficult, there is no much to say about it.

This is the hardest, you can always lose.  Using nitros is a dangerous game, but it’s inevitable.  I really hate it, each time Ironman goes beyond me, I suffer.  Several times I have finish next to the lap counter.

All the content of this page was created by Juan Sebastián Vélez
Last update:  May 23^th/2002