Action biker was the very first game I remember playing on the C 64. I received a not so legal copy from a friend at school. It’s possibly one of the first sponsor linked games in that it has Skips crisps featured. I’m not sure it had the desired effect, at least not on me because I’ve not eaten a packet in years!
Anyway the idea is simple enough in that you must collect a series of items to make your bike suitable for racing.
Action biker was the very first game I remember playing on the C 64. I received a not so legal copy from a friend at school. It’s possibly one of the first sponsor linked games in that it has Skips crisps featured. I’m not sure it had the desired effect, at least not on me because I’ve not eaten a packet in years!
Anyway the idea is simple enough in that you must collect a series of items to make your bike suitable for racing. These items can be found throughout the map but only one at a time and include: water skis, gearbox & gloves etc.
The play area is actually quite small (at top speed you can be back
to the gas station in 6 seconds.) which leads me to question just how come I found it so difficult when I played it as a child. You are given 7000 bonus points which counts down the longer it takes you to find the required object. If you don’t find it before the bonus reaches zero then you lose a life. To reach zero takes around 4.5 minutes so there really is no rush. Even so some of the objects can be surprisingly difficult to obtain; the rollercoaster springs to mind. Another way you can forfeit a life is by running out of gas so you need to refuel at the local gas station. This can be quite a challenge because with the smaller fuel tank at the beginning of the game you can run out of gas in under a minute if you really gun it.
The final manner in which you can lose a life is by hitting an object or running into the water (but not if you have water skis). There are plenty of objects to bump into so this makes for the primary challenge in the game. Although the graphics are of their age the playability is really quite good fun. Controlling the bike feels even better now that I play via a keyboard.
One thing that has always stayed with me is the music. I have literally been playing it in my head for years and anyone who has played it in the past will instantly recognize it. One thing I figured out pretty early on was the fact the location and the sequence of the items never change so all you have to do is make a list of where the items are found and the game can be won without too much hard work.
After all your hard work you get to finally have a race on the race track but to be fair this is rather anticlimactic. Despite this though this game has a lot going for it and I shall be playing for some time to come.
