Developed by: SPC Vision (SPC Vision is credited on the back cover, but the intro of the game shows "The Vision Factory", which was the games department of SPC Vision)
Published by: inhouse at SPC Vision, released through mailorder. It does have however a Philips catalogue number and copyright layout, but Philips Media was officially dismantled by the time this title was released. Perhaps some of the distribution channels were still available, the contacts remained.
Original release: 1997, although an official demo was released in 1994 on the Bundle Disc, a free give-away by The Free Record Shop.
Genre: 2D top down racer
CD-i type: Compact Disc Interactive, base-case standard CD-i disc, no DVC required. It is actually a CD-i Ready disc, you can also play this disc in your Audio CD player, so you can enjoy the soundtrack.
Catalogue: 8101700 (Europe)
Releases: Originally released in a standard jewelcase, in Europe only.
Language: English only
Emulator: It is partially working in CD-i Emulator v0.53b4 and higher. It may crash at some point and shows some other random glitches. The Vision Factory title screen appears and plays with sound accurately and then remains until an action button is pressed. This leads into the title screen where you must press an action button again to get to the main menu screen. Music appears to play correctly and all options can be selected/viewed. Gameplay runs at the correct speed with music, so it appears this game is fully supported by CD-i Emulator.
Description from the developer:
Accelerator is an all-time classic 2D racing game! You select from one of eight different drivers and then it’s off to the races. Drive around the track as fast as possible avoiding enemy bullets and collecting money all along the way. If you collect enough cash and finish in one of the top four spots, you can buy your own ammunition or improve your driving skills. Don’t forget, select your driver carefully, since each driver has their own abilities including traction, acceleration, speed and armour.
Game Facts:
Accelerator had the most protracted development cycle of any CD-i game. It was initially written by a student Ben Sugden on a working vacation to SPC Vision. He designed the core concept of the game but left it in an unfinished state when his vacation was out. The game was developed on and off by various SPC staff until finally during the summer of 1994 a testing version was sent to PIMC. This came back with numerous bugs which remained unfixed until Michael Hildenborg was contracted to produce a fixed version which was completed towards the end of 1995. The game was sent to PIMC and returned again with new bugs, since there was no publisher and no great hurry Accelerator was shelved for more than a year. Finally the game was finished and released in 1997 by SPC Vision.
Review
Are you ready to drive? Ready to get behind the wheel of a mean street racer and take out all your opponents with your driving skills and deadly special weapons? Ready to make Nick Cage eat your dust in less than 60 seconds? Have you been waiting for a top view CD-i racing game that'll finally be better than MICRO MACHINES?
This is one of those titles you hold some hope for as they do have other titles in the genre on the same platform that made mistakes, and they could learn from them. The often touchy colision detection of MM is still a case for attention, made worse by the enlargment of the vehicles. This makes it so darn easy to dammage your car just for getting close to the wall. Also, if you turn and slide next to it, the minute you try to turn away, the rear of your car will bash into the wall. Stopping you and doing more dammage than if you ran headlong into it. Sad. Adding even more frustration is the fact the computer can drive through some of the walls in the game without getting dammaged. Making the old 'Bash Them into the Wall' technique hit-and-miss at best.
Even the few weapons offered for the cars don't make it any more intresting. Cost to get them isn't the overall issue, its really just how easy the sketchy collision detection makes them worthless. Control does vary a bit by upgrading the various parts of your car, but so you really notice. Speed and armor are the first you should upgrade in most cars though, as the computer cars will start bashing and shooting early in the game, and also have a ton of speed to boot. Sound takes its cue DIRECTLY from Micro Machines. No game sounds at all, just the soundtrack....
Mediocre techno-crap combined with some audio samples from famous movies. To a movie fan like me, this was the highlight of the game. Not the music, but trying to guess what movies the samples were from. Some quite obvious, others very obscure. Some classic samples come from Robocop, The Blues Brothers and other action films. My fav though should have been on the soundtrack to level 2, its actually the first one you hear on level 1. from Loaded Weapon 1 : "It's gonna take more than a couple of car bombs to scare us off this case! Not a hell of alot more!" If I could say they fixed anything in this one from the Micro Machines engine, it would be that annoying screen jitter & jerk. It's actually pretty much non-existent.
A real plus to the smooth scrolling nessessary in a racer of this sort. Saddly, the control being so oddly proportioned, it makes it less noticable, as on more complex levels, it can be hard to get up to much speed at all. One odd note, they made no attempt to use the onboard storage in the machine, rather all games are saved via password. Very unusual. But then again, it just adds to the overall "rushed" feeling the game gives. In summary, this is one of those titles that was rushed out the door before production should have wrapped. Sure, it was released after the commercial death of CD-i, but even so, just a few more touches, and testing and it could have been something really nice. As it is, it's just a mediocre racer at best. It's best played in short terms. At least there is a password feature.
From the Disc
Most CD-i Games have "Abstract", "Bibliographic" and "Copyright" details on the softwares disc itself, any interesting information in these files can be found below.
Abstract: Accelerator, an addictive car racing game by The Vision Factory, 1997
Bibliographic: Accelerator
Produced by The Vision Factory
Programming by Ben Sugden
Graphics by Niklas Malmqvist
Music by Matthew Sugden
Level design by Roland Zwaga
Lots of help Tim Moss
Additional programming and finishing off by Stefan Posthuma, Arjen Wagenaar, Luc Rooijakkers, Micael Hildenborg
Extra game testing by Florinda Rooijakkers, Joost Steins-Bisschop, Mark Siebeler. With much help from Pepita, Merijn, Sterre, Lieve, Darren and Nicky
Marketing and Sales Fraser Kleyn
Executive Director Rob Hormann
Some car designs Bengt Agaton
Also thanks to the following people Fred Liauw, Eric van Orsouw, Luke S. Verhulst, Guido Wolters
This game is dedicated to the finer things in life
Niklas dedicates his bits to Lotta Agaton
This game would not have been possible without Fields of the Nephilim, Nick Cave and his lads, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Soul Music, The Orb, chilled heineken beer, sweet and sour chicken, family support
Quick greets from ben to Keithey, Big man Ian, Rimby draw II, Ed Mat and Taff, Eddy and Tat, Dan crazy Poxton, Midly amusing Ade and everyone else
All game code, graphics and music are copyright The Vision Factory 1997
All rights of the producer and of the owner of the work are reserved. Unauthorized copying, hiring, renting, public performance, transmission and/or broadcasting are prohibited.
Copyright: All game code, graphics and music are copyright The Vision Factory 1997. All rights of the producer and of the owner of the work are reserved. Unauthorized copying, hiring, renting, public performance, transmission and/or broadcasting are prohibited.
