Alternatively: just stop. Right now

Sometimes, you just can’t go back. Games built solely around engrossing gameplay (Pac-Man) or a core of fantastic gameplay but with added fantastic visual effects (Defender) still engage today. But for some genres, notably racing, it’s all about thrills driven by visual excitement. And if there’s one thing lacking in early 1980s C64 racers, it’s visual excitement. And thrills. (OK, two things.)

Back in the day, Pitstop II wowed. Its split-screen enabled two players to battle it out head-to-head (well, tyre-to-tyre), or for Billy no-mates to take on computer opponents. As the name suggests, Epyx were rather excited about the pitstop component, which enabled you to refuel and change worn tyres.

On playing the game now, it’s almost impossible to see it as anything other than a relic. The graphics are dull, the sound mind-numbingly tedious, and the gameplay shockingly boring. The pitstop, supposedly a high-point, is absurd in its sluggishness and just gets in the way. When it boils down to it, Pitstop II is merely a split-screen Pole Position, with an unwanted extra ’scene’. The thing is, Pole Position is actually more fun.

Pitstop II is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish). You’ll also need some rose-tinted glasses, however, and those cost extra.

This is the news! Rising fuel costs slash pit team personnel!

We’ve got an emergency here

Chase HQ is like injecting the 1980s into your eyeballs. Take one very 1980s sports car (a black Porsche), a duo of American cops (one black, one white, just like in Miami Vice), sprinkle on a dash of OutRun, and bake for 40 minutes. Er, and then inject, obv., otherwise the opening line doesn’t work.

The game is great and a still somewhat rare concept: drive fast, catch your adversary and then ram their car into submission. It makes you want to wear a pastel suit, hum Crockett’s Theme and Bruce Springsteen, and grow a mullet. OK, maybe not, but it is a lot of fun, even in these days of from-every-angle pile-ups in Burnout 947.

Unfortunately, Chase HQ on Virtual Console starkly illustrates one of the platform’s major shortcomings compared to XBLA: instead of using the still rather nifty arcade original, you’re lumbered with the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 conversion. To continue our needle theme, this version is rather like injecting battery acid into your eyeballs.

The graphics are dreadful, flickery and lack animation. The controls are all over the shop. And the gameplay is less fun than kissing a rabid weasel. Even the dire NES and Master System versions would have been a step up from this, and the CPC and Spectrum releases were (and still are) miles ahead of this shambles. Avoid.

Chase HQ is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish), if you fancy wasting your money.

‘Criminals here,’ it says by the arrow, but the real criminals are the ones charging for this garbage. Oh yes.

Hiiiiyaaaaaaaaaaa!

Once upon a time, all fighting games were about Eastern pyjama-wearing gents kicking each-other in the face. They were sedate affairs, based on tactics and cunning, epitomised by Melbourne House’s Way of the Exploding Fist. And then IK+ arrived, blowing everything else out of the water.

On the surface little had changed: there was an extra fighter and a prettier backdrop. But having that extra competitor on-screen transformed the fighting genre, turning the sedate into the frenetic, ensuring the player rarely got a chance to catch their breath.

In today’s market, IK+ looks blocky and dated. The C64’s graphics lack the charm of a Pac-Man or a Mario and the definition of a Spectrum title. But the animation is fluid, and the collision detection spot-on.

Importantly, though, the gameplay still shines through after over two decades. Moves are carefully assigned to logical control positions, making fights intuitive and instinctive, rather than a memory test. And with its combination of varied opponent styles (they change every level), frantic bonus game (deflect bouncing balls with a shield) and its lack of button-mashing, this classic from yesteryear genuinely manages to give most of its modern equivalents a thoroughly good kicking.

IK+ is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish). If you think that’s too much for a 21-year-old game, more fool you.

Old man speak wisely. Red player can’t even tie belt properly.