Neon Rider Classic is now in the Steam store, which is great news for anyone who spent too much time avoiding homework through Flash games about fifteen years ago. The original title, Neon Rider, attracted a lot of attention for being a simple experience that used the keyboard, very little system resources and was a great waste of time. A sequel, Neon Rider World, followed up with the same essential ideas, but more levels. Naturally, almost two decades later, the developers thought about making some actual money on their intellectual property and, as such, teamed up with Armor Games Studio to package both browser titles into a single PC release.

For those unfamiliar (as I was), the concept is to get a car from one end of the track to another. The car has basic acceleration and reverse engines, as well as the need to correct the center of gravity/the tilt of the car through careful left and right tilting. The actions of engine and orientation are both assigned keys on the keyboard, though it works quite well with your average twin stick controller. The level terrain is rarely flat, and often has peaks, valleys, loops and jumps to navigate in order to successfully make it to the finish line. Failure comes when you flip the car over and cannot right yourself, though the game does have a generous “life bar” that gives you a few sections to try and correct your vehicle.

Well, this is going swimmingly.

The neon part of Neon Rider Classic comes from the landscape, which changes hue as you move along. While your car will always drive along the default blue terrain, the additional colors of red, yellow and green will appear, creating some unique challenges. If you’re the same color as the road, your car will drive on top of (and into) it like a normal highway. If you’re a different color, the line becomes intangible and you’ll pass right through. Changing color is as simple as pushing a button on the controller (or yet another set of keys on the keyboard)(. Starting off with very clear and easy ways forward, the game quickly ramps up the color changes, putting players in a precarious situation where reflexes are the difference between success and abject destruction.

Conceptually, Neon Rider Classic is a clever enough game, relying on the two things that always make for addictive titles: physics and quirks. The vehicle is very strict about adhering to interference and acceleration, so it’s impossibly easy to become disoriented and end up over throttling, causing your car to start flipping one way or another. The second your roof or bumper touches the ground sans wheels, the timer begins until you lose the round, so there is some, but not a lot, of wiggleroom to make errors. The satisfaction comes from being sure and accurate about your landings and transitions: you really don’t want to phase your car too early or too late and end up stuck inside the wall, where your life bar immediately begins to rapidly deplete.

The first few levels are simple enough and give you plenty of understanding for how the game works. For the most part, Neon Rider Classic’s original mechanics aren’t the things that’ll give you problems in the long run. The swapping between colors to stay safe and on target is a relatively straightforward concept, made even more plausible thanks to the controller buttons allowing you to do it without sacrificing thrust or spin. In fact, until about stage 25 (aptly named Final Test), I didn’t even really consider there to be anything to think about in color changing. It usually went either with a single color to be ready for OR it went in order of the buttons for the easiest switching ever.

When the game gets into a good rhythm, it is absolutely addicting.

No, the hang ups I had were the main levels themselves. More often than not, I was defeated by trying to get up a hill, over bumpy lines or simply to land and not flip myself into a coma. Far more often than I’d like to admit I ended up dead just inches from the finish line, doing a sort of dog-butt-scoot on my rear bumper and still technically moving ahead, just in a horrible fashion. A lot of people who just come from a simple racing background of Mario Kart or R.C. Pro-AM won’t have the capabilities to instinctually account for how quickly the car gets out of control, so I had to relearn the proper way to drive for this game. It was fun, but I won’t lie that it frustrated me terribly to redo the same stages again and again because of a quick clip that ended my life. This probably would feel different if I was actively doing it in lieu of my third period chemistry homework, but I’m pleased to say I just ignore office work nowadays.

Additionally, Neon Rider Classic decided to keep all of the old affectations from the original incarnation, including the graphics and sounds. The graphics in terms of the actual gameplay are perfectly fine and get the job done, but the odd flashing of text and seemingly arbitrary HUD messages before each run is, well, distracting and weird. It’s the only thing that didn’t run well on my computer, and made the game appear glitchy even when  it wasn’t. It probably landed differently in a Firefox browser window while my computer’s RAM screamed for mercy, but we can’t keep thinking about how the game used to appear. This is a modern release on computers that positively dwarf the Windows 7 machines of yore, and we expect more.

Perfect parking job.

In that same vein, I had to turn off the music. I had to. It was the same repetitive, thrusting electronic beat that made sense in terms of being a quick few minutes of gameplay, but it’s annoying to the point of inducing anger when placed into a finite game loop. There aren’t any additional musical tracks from what I could tell, so don’t hold your breath hoping for some secret notes to show up after the first hour of happy hardcore. I kept on the sound effects, though: the simple revving of the engine and the minor collision noises were satisfying and scratched the aural itch needed to get back up and keep on driving.

This is a game that’s going to definitely appeal to the now adults who enjoyed Neon Rider as a kid. Neon Rider Classic ticks all the boxes for an impulse buy from Steam: low price, familiar IP, decent Steam overlay implementation and no additional purchases. For three bucks you get to revisit something from your childhood or take a look at what kids used to think of as peak entertainment. I personally felt I got the money’s worth, but only just. In today’s day and age, you need to love the games you buy, and I merely liked Neon Rider Classic. Enjoy if this is your jam, and others who are curious need to watch some gameplay footage to figure out if their time is better spent behind the wheel or in another vehicle entirely.

Neon Rider Classic is available now on Steam.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Neon Rider Classic was provided by the publisher.