RC Pro Am was released by
Nintendo and developed by
Rareware. Rareware is also known as Rare, they went on to create Goldeneye 007 and Conker's Bad Fur Day in recent years. RC Pro Am was created for the
NES.
RC Pro Am starts with a screen of a Jeep and a SUV racing each others. When you start the game you begin in a Jeep, during the race you will see a flashing N, if you grab all eight of them you will change cars. The second car you looks like an SUV. The should be about 4 different cars but I have not seen all of them or can remember them if I do.
Obviously these are remote controlled cars. Some how the makers of these cars can utilize invincibility cages, bombs, and rockets. How this is possible is not known but it makes for a fun game. You can drop the bombs out of the back of the car and the missiles come flying out the front. Either one can destroy a car as can the invincibility cages wreck a car for a couple seconds.
There is supposed to be about 32 tracks for this game and they repeat over and over. After about 12 tracks the tracks will start repeating with additions of zippers. The zippers shoot the cars forward extremely fast. The cars shoot around the track so fast that you have to turn ahead of times. This sounds hard but it is somewhat simple.
In addition there are upgrades. There are engine pars to have a faster top speed, flywheels are gained to get "turbo acceleration" and the wheels are great for traction. These parts are lying around the track. Why? No one knows, but you can gain four levels for each upgrade per car. Each upgrade helps you raise the stats for your car, but when you receive 8 letters and receive a new car your old upgrades go away.
Now for the technical aspects, lets start with the graphics. To start with there is not many images or sprites, but each car is beautifully done to look like it is a 3D image. The directions you are driving correspond with the direction of the car perfectly. The other objects in the game are nothing special but the cars themselves are beautiful.
The sounds in the game are nothing to talk about it, but because I must, there is a bit of an intro music to the game, and a race ending music. When I call it music I mean a couple of notes played nothing more. There is the sound of tires screeching, and a few noises for shooting of missiles. Then of course there is the engine roar, but that is about it.
Now the down side of the games, computer controlled raced cars are beyond PERFECT! Some aren't but one will do everything perfect... How else can the race end (someone wins) when you are only in the second lap of a four lap race with two cars next to you? Because the game cheats like no other. Some games make it extremely hard, this game purely cheats. Luckily all you have to do is third place but the computer cheats more and more each race, and the final minutes of the race seem to be the absolute worst for it.
Overall this is a great nostalgia game. I recently played my copy again and the only thought I had was "Damm this game was great." Of course if you never played NES don't bother with it. You need a love for simplistic gameplay to truly enjoy this game.
The real name of Rare was found at www.mobygames.com