Ace Driver is a 3D racing arcade game released by Namco in 1994.
The player can choose between Automatic or Manual gear, and Beginner or Expert Class.The cars are:
- Team Red Lightning (cars 25 and 26)
- Scuderia Blue Castle (cars 3 and 4)
- Yellow Cyclone Racing (cars 17 and 18)
- Green Island Motor Sports (cars 11 and 12)
Ace Driver received the award for the Best Coin-Operated Game of the 76th Annual IAAPA Show.
The sequel to this game is Ace Driver: Victory Lap.
Criticism[ | ]
Ace Driver made extensive use of the CPU Assist technique whereby a trailing player would be given a significant speed boost to allow them to catch the leading player. However, the speed boost continued for a short while after the losing player had overtaken the leader - leading to a tactic known as boosting where a player would deliberately allow themselves to lose the lead, then during the last half of the last game lap would easily take back the lead with no hope of the opposing player catching them.
Boosting also meant that straight skill races were difficult to have as CPU assist would be continually changing the losing players speed and position.