''Vette!'' is a 1989

racing video game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic rac ...

published by Spectrum Holobyte for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

compatible operating systems in 1989.

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

and

NEC PC-9801 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more ...

ports followed. The objective is to race a

Chevrolet Corvette The Chevrolet Corvette is a two-door, two-passenger luxury sports car manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet since 1953. With eight design generations, noted sequentially from C1 to C8, the Corvette is noted for its performance and distinctive ...

through the streets of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The game uses a 3D, flat-shaded polygon rendering of the city, including landmarks such as the

Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco P ...

, the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and Lombard Street. It was released on three floppy disks in both a

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

and color version. A

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

version was planned, but never released.

Gameplay

*Car damage that affected the car's engine and handling. *Full control over the game's camera views, including an interior cam with a full working dashboard. *The ability to drive anywhere within the modeled city including highways, tunnels, and bridges. *Pulling over at various gas stations that would repair the car. *The player is able to run people over. *Driving erratically can attract the attention of a nearby cop, triggering a chase, which can result in getting pulled over. There are 8 excuses to choose from unless charged for vehicular homicide by running over at least 1 pedestrian during the chase, or within close proximity of a cop. At the beginning of the game, a question from the manual requires a correct answer to prove game ownership. If the question is falsely answered, the game can be played for a limited time before a window popped up claiming "You have been caught driving a stolen Vette!", followed by the game crashing.

Development

During the development of this game, the attack on protesting Chinese students in

Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananme ...

occurred. In memory of that event, one of the programmers snuck this string into the program executable: "IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO WERE MURDERED IN TIAN-AN-MEN SQUARE ON JUNE 4, 1989. J.P. "

Reception

Tony Dillon of ''

ACE An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ca ...

'' praised ''Vette!'' for its "complexity of design combined with clever simplicity in presentation" and its varied gameplay, and opined that the game "doesn't quite have the edge over '' Stunt Car'', but it sure isn't far behind." Peter Scisco of ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

'' favorably reviewed the game, describing it as "'' Falcon AT'' on the ground." He praised the game's detail and

EGA Ega or EGA may refer to: Military * East German Army, the common western name for the National People's Army * Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the emblem of the United States Marine Corps People * Aega (mayor of the palace), 7th-century noble of Neus ...

graphics, only criticizing the lack of

sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external au ...

support, and concluded that "''Vette!'' surpasses other driving simulations in its scope and realism".

References

External links

*{{moby game, id=/vette 1989 video games Chevrolet Corvette DOS games Cancelled Sega Genesis games Classic Mac OS games Multiplayer and single-player video games NEC PC-9801 games North America-exclusive video games Racing video games Racing video games set in the United States Spectrum HoloByte games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in San Francisco