The Great American Cross Country Road Race

Summary

The game puts the player in the position of a driver of a high-performance car, racing across the United States while passing through its major cities. Obstacles include weather, road conditions, limited fuel, and the highway patrol. The changing time of day affects gameplay, because the other cars drive faster at night.

Players are given the option of choosing their routes from city to city, allowing them to, for example, take a northern route through the snowy Midwest. Every route has its own scoreboard for the top ten fastest times to complete each route.

Development

The Great American Cross-Country Road Race was designed by Alex DeMeo, who had been inspired by the film The Gumball Rally. The game is in part an adaptation of an earlier Activision game Enduro, created for the Atari 2600 console, but with design, graphics and sound expanded to fit the capabilities of the more powerful computers. DeMeo programmed the original version of Road Race on an Atari 800 including sound, music and some graphics. The game's title sequence was based on an introduction screen of another Activision video game Master of the Lamps.