Stunt Race FX puts race cars built from simple shapes on twisting tracks made possible by the Super FX hardware inside the cartridge, and the result still holds up as a driving game even now.
Super FX Hardware at Work
The Super FX hardware lets the game build hills, wide turns and rises out of simple shapes instead of plain pictures painted on the screen. Tracks bend into wide turns and rise and fall beneath the cars as they race. The game keeps its pace steady even when several cars share the screen at once, which was no small thing for the Super Nintendo at the time this game came out. The cost of this is a plain look. Cars are made of a few simple shapes, and the ground around the tracks is often empty.
Cars and Courses
Players choose from several cars, each handling in its own way and moving at its own pace. A heavy truck can pass over obstacles a light car cannot. A car built to be strong and solid forgives mistakes that would ruin a quicker car’s run. The tracks make use of that difference, offering rises and drops, turns that double back on themselves, and shorter paths that reward picking the right car for the job.
The courses go from forgiving to hard.
- Early tracks, wide and mostly level
- Middle courses adding wide turns and narrow paths
- Late tracks combining rises, drops, tight turns and obstacles together
Modes, Sound and Presentation
Stunt Race FX offers a plain championship mode and a mode built for two people to play on a shared screen. When two people play, the game’s pace drops, and the already plain look grows plainer still. It still works well as something to play with a friend, since the controls answer well even when the picture strains.
The music is cheerful and repeats often, matching the arcade feel the game goes for. Sound effects are plain engine noise and sounds of cars striking one another, nothing more. The presentation between races is small: menus, a car choice screen, and little beyond that.
Where It Falls Short
The look is the main weakness. Where other games built for the Super FX hardware pushed toward greater detail, Stunt Race FX stays plain, and next to games that came out around the same time, that plain look can seem unfinished. The mode built for one person also runs short on things to do once every car and track has been tried.
The drop in pace when two people play is a real problem, not a small one.
This is a game best judged by what it tries, not only by what it shows on screen.
Final Word
Stunt Race FX is a technical experiment that mostly pays off. The Super FX hardware delivers a driving game with real height and a strong sense of pace, something the Super Nintendo library needed more of. But the plain look, thin presentation and the drop in pace when two people share the screen keep it from standing with the console’s best games. It is a good, brief way to spend an afternoon rather than something players return to for years.
