freeway

A divided highway with interchanges and grade separations, but no at-grade intersections. In other words, no streets cross, and there are no traffic lights or stop signs.

Freeways don't have to be free as in free beer, but usually are. Urban freeways have been used as an effective tool to clear old slum areas and create new ones.

Transforms from car to robot and back!

THROTTLEBOT: FREEWAY

FUNCTION: SABOTEUR
"Words can cut deeper than steel."

The Throttlebots' self-appointed comedian. Specializes in insulting others, but gets angry when others make fun of him. His car radio intercepts and decodes enemy radio broadcasts, transmitts erroneous ones instead. Uses sonic land mines, magnetic homing grenades, rusting agents, etc. for sabotage. At times he laughs so hard at his jokes he blows internal circuits and disables himself.

• Strength: 3
• Intelligence: 6
• Speed: 4
• Endurance: 6
• Rank: 6
• Courage: 8
• Firepower: 3
• Skill: 9

A blue Corvette in vehicle mode, another bland plastic shell in robot mode. Because of the restrictions imposed by the Throttlebots' design, he was only slightly different in appearance from Searchlight and Chase in either mode.

Freeway was a sort of Frogger clone that took a lot of the fun out of Frogger. You control a chicken that has to "cross the road". You can only move forwards and backwards. Reaching the other side of the road warps you right back to the beginning again.

I remember playing this as a kid and thinking "What is this crap?". 20 years later I am playing it and still thinking, "What is this crap?".

This is a pretty common game that is of little value. There were a few different label variations, and a pirate version by Zellers, but all versions are pretty easy to find. Of course, games with boxes and manuals are worth more.

Running length: One hour and 42 minutes
Rating: R
Written and directed by: Matthew Bright

Freeway is sort of a Little Red Riding Hood story on acid, you might say. A young girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Southern California has drug addicts for parents. Her mother is a crack-kissing prostitute, and her step-father molests her. Vanessa (Reese's character) is about to be hauled away once the cops bust the parents, but she escapes to go in search of her dear grandmother, who lives in Northern California.

Her boyfriend gives her a gun as a going-away gift, and while on the road her car breaks down. A "wolf in sheep's clothing," a man named Bob Wolverton (Kiefer), stops to help her. It is not long after that Vanessa finds out the man helping her is a serial killer.

Vanessa has a bloody fight with Bob, she ends up in a twisted girl's prison, and goes on trial. But that's not all. Vanessa may be white trash, but she's no weakling, and after the crap she's been through she certainly gained street smarts. And does she get to her grandmother's house? Give it a view to find out.

Quite a neat black comedy, I'd say. It would have been interesting to see what David Lynch could have done with this.