4

5 /5

Another in the long line of ground-breaking racing games from Sega, Rad Mobile is a twenty stage race across America; starting in Los Angeles and finishing in New York. With the game's release, Sega yet again introduced new gameplay elements to the genre, primarily in the form of dynamic weather effects. Sega's 1989 racer, "Turbo Out Run", also included limited weather effects, but they were far less prominent as a gameplay feature and a good deal less impressive than they are here.

Another Sega innovation is that many of Rad Mobile's stages have banked corners; with the car's cockpit view tilting to match the driving surface. Some stages also have police patrols, and players must either avoid or outrun the police cars or risk being pulled over. Being pulled over will result in a loss of valuable seconds.

In addition to the tight time limit, rival drivers (represented as red cars) and heavy, two-way traffic, players now had to contend with heavy rain, thick fog and darkness. Windscreen wipers and headlights had to be manually switched on by the player which, together with the first-person in-car view, gave a more realistic and interactive feel to standard but undeniably superb racing action.