I interviewed Joe Decuir back in 2005 and asked him about the Super Bug port for the Atari home computers that I had heard about:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/joe_decuir/interview_joe_decuir.html
For the VCS, other than Atari's Indy 500 (1977) and Sprint Master (1988), there were also the unreleased Racer (which is strictly a vertical racer ala Monaco GP) and Activision's Grand Prix (a horizontal racer). Atari pretty much ignored doing any ports for their 8-bit computers. Besides Rally Speedway, there were a few other 3rd-party games in the mid-80s like Grand Prix Simulator and Grand Prix II, but AFAIK none of those early games were ported to the 8-bits.
3rd-person perspective racers pretty much relegated top-down racers to pit road. Night Driver was an early glimpse of that, but when Turbo and Pole Position came out, that's when it really changed. The genre had a revival with games like Championship Sprint, Badlands, and Leland's Super Off Road, showing they still had an edge with multi-player gaming, until 3rd-person racers were able to be linked up.
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/joe_decuir/interview_joe_decuir.html
Q: You once mentioned that you had programmed a version of Atari's Super Bug coin-op for the 800, purely as a test concept. Do you recall why it was never released?
Joe Decuir: I didn't stick around to finish it. I started another company with two pals to work on modems and other communications products.
For the VCS, other than Atari's Indy 500 (1977) and Sprint Master (1988), there were also the unreleased Racer (which is strictly a vertical racer ala Monaco GP) and Activision's Grand Prix (a horizontal racer). Atari pretty much ignored doing any ports for their 8-bit computers. Besides Rally Speedway, there were a few other 3rd-party games in the mid-80s like Grand Prix Simulator and Grand Prix II, but AFAIK none of those early games were ported to the 8-bits.
3rd-person perspective racers pretty much relegated top-down racers to pit road. Night Driver was an early glimpse of that, but when Turbo and Pole Position came out, that's when it really changed. The genre had a revival with games like Championship Sprint, Badlands, and Leland's Super Off Road, showing they still had an edge with multi-player gaming, until 3rd-person racers were able to be linked up.
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