Video games have a long history with racing games, starting with Atari’s Space Race (1973). Two players race their rocket ships through an asteroid field as they see who can reach the top of the screen the fastest without being pulverised by flying rocks. The first car racing arcade game was Atari’s Gran Trak 10 (1974). The single player race against the clock with a realistic steering wheel, gear shift, accelerator, and brake pedals. Two drivers could race against each other when the sequel Gran Trak 20 (1974) added another set of controls. Years later, Namco and Atari released the iconic Pole Position (1982), the first game on a real race track: the Fuji Speedway. Sega wowed gamers with the release of the arcade hit, Hang-On (1985), sporting a controller that looked like a real motorcycle! Players gripped the handlebars to control their speed and leaned the bike left and right to steer. Sony focused on creating an ultra-realistic driving simulation with Gran Turismo (1997) by Kazunori Yamauchi. The game impressed Nissan enough that they asked Yamauchi to help design one of their sports cars.
Racing games aren’t just about real vehicles. Players race toy cars in Rare’s R.C. Pro-Am (1988) and Codemasters’ Micro Machines (1991). Nintendo brought their own crazy race tracks and cartoon weapons to the racing genre with Super Mario Kart (1992). Psygnosis combined Mario Kart-style combat with high-speed, futuristic hovercrafts in Wipeout (1994). Star Wars Episode I: Racer (1999) launched players’ pod racers across alien worlds of the Star Wars galaxy and Frequency (2001) by Harmonix is a music game disguised as a racing game.
Students will learn how to use Unity to perform the following:
