Ah, Road Rash, that’s the game about fighting people on motorbikes, right? Having never actually played it before, that was what I went in with. It’s not false, exactly, but Road Rash 3 overturned my expectations by having a lot more in common with Speed King than the destruction-focused MegaRace.
As you ride your motorbike along, you can indeed kick and punch other bike riders. You can steal their weapons so you can move on to swiping them with crowbars and the like instead, too. The connections are pretty satisfying and there’s a lovely option for winding up an attack, getting poised to strike with immediate force as soon as you are into position. It’s distinctive and tempting to make great use of, but taking out opponents is incidental to the goal the game presents, to win a race.
Road Rash 3 is primarily a racing game in which you try to be first to complete long point-to-point tracks in various locations around the world (having scaled up from first California alone in Road Rash, and then the whole US in Road Rash 2). Hitting opponents until they fall away is a fun tactic, but focusing on speed, staying on the track and not spending too much wasteful time in the air at bumps are all more important to success.
As such on the evidence of Road Rash 3 the series is one of the less drastic evolutions to OutRun and its successors, using the fighting as a bit of flavour to keep up stimulation in the absence of checkpoints. Its tracks are designed with less of a perfect progression of obstacles than those of Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, for instance, but between dodging traffic, jumps and whacking people with metal objects it’s hard to mind. Getting to the finish in first doesn’t feel any less of an achievement than completing checkpoints, either.
The area where Road Rash 3 surprisingly falls down on compared to predecessors on older machines is the wider world it puts you in. Checking out the scenery as it whizzes by is usually a big appeal of driving/riding games, and Road Rash 3 does at least present a range of distinct locations, from verdant Brazil to snowy Germany. The greenery of Brazil and green overalls of your opponents are not a good combination, though, and the player character’s being sky blue isn’t much better. Between the ultra-limited palette and a level of visual detail which is limited without being enough so to make it a stylistic strength, the whole thing looks horribly washed out. It’s only slightly less so in the UK race thanks to at least having a contrast with a sky of dull grey.
That brings us back to the starting point. Road Rash 3 is a decent racing game wrapped in an unattractive package and less memorable than it could be, and that leaves a violent ancillary gimmick as its standout aspect.
Gallup cartridge chart, Computer Trade Weekly 27 March 1995 (chart for week to 18 March 1995)