Road Rash originally made its début on the Sega Mega Drive back in 1991 and subsequently spawned a few sequels and ports to other consoles. Road Rash on the Game Gear is one of those ports.
The game features violent illegal street racing against 15 other bikers with the aim of finishing in the top 4. Once you finish in the top 4 in each of the 5 races, you move onto the next level where you find the same course themes, but the races are longer and the bikers within are tougher. The races are based on Californian areas; Sierra Nevada, Pacific Coast, Redwood Forest, Palm Desert and Grass Valley.
You are awarded with cash for finishing the race, but are rewarded significantly more for the podium positions. You can spend the cash on better bikes which have varying speed and handling characteristics.
In each race, you start in last position, and the 14 competitors have an instant lead on you. You are significantly faster than the lower ranking bikers, but the faster races are more competitive. If you don't crash too often, you should catch up over the course of the race. Initially, the races are about 4:30 but then end up clocking just under 10:00.
As well as racing, you can punch and kick other racers. Punching depletes their health, and fully depleting it knocks them off their bike. Kicking knocks them to the side, which is great for pushing them into oncoming cars, or knocking them off the road and into trees. Some bikers carry a baseball bat which is very powerful. This can be stolen with a well timed punch, which gives you the weapon for that race only. The bikers seem to keep a note of your aggressive behaviour and will attack you in future races. If you don't show aggressive behaviour, the bikers seem to stick to racing too. This makes future races more fun since you can make rivalries with certain racers.
When you crash during the race, your bike suffers damage. Damage it too much and you wreck it which is gonna cost you. You can also get arrested by the cops which forfeits the race and you are fined a small amount of cash.
If you venture off the road, you risk hitting many obstacles such as rocks and trees, but there's plenty of dangers on the road too, such as blockades, animals, oil spills, and cars. There's not much traffic on the road, possibly due to the limitations of the console, and partially because it would significantly increase the difficulty. Hitting the oil spills cause your bike to lose grip and begin to slide. There's a good chance multiple obstacles are going to give you a tough time, such as running over and oil spill whilst going round a corner as you see a car oncoming. This means you do need a degree of luck as you race, especially since police can suddenly appear once you get knocked off your bike.
The police only seem to come after you, no matter if you knock a competitive racer off his bike. The only way to escape is to out-run them. The police love to try and block you, so the technique you need to use is to slow down, turn sharply, then accelerate quickly. Even when you do escape, sometimes they can appear again 15 seconds later, which is just frustrating.
The main buttons are for accelerate and attack. Attacking uses punch by default but pressing up gives you the option of kicking. Releasing the accelerator obviously slows you down, and pressing down on the d-pad applies the brakes. Your HUD shows speed, odometer, stamina meters, two mirrors, and a timer. The mirrors are an impressive feature and come in a lot of use if you want to strike passing opponents, block them off from overtaking, and to monitor approaching police.
Road Rash was a child-hood classic of mine, and I was afraid that replaying it would ruin my fond memories. Surprisingly, it is still a fun game. The length of the latter races can feel a bit gruelling, and can feel a bit infuriating when one mistake causes you to fall off your bike and the police just happen to show up to bust you. It's a great concept which seems to have become lost over the years, but the upcoming game, Road Redemption by DarkSeas should hopefully revive the genre.