Side by Side (サイド・バイ・サイド) is the franchise for a popular 1990s touge racing game series whose name changed to Battle Gear (バトル・ギア) in the 2000s. It was developed by Taito and was first released on arcade cabinets before being ported on the PlayStation home consoles. Battle Gear 2 is known as Tokyo Road Race in Europe. Taito released The Fast and the Furious arcade game in 2006 which is based on the popular movie of the same name known as Wild Speed in Japan and whose subject is import tuned cars.
Side by Side series[ | ]
Side by Side episodes allow the player to select import sports cars from a Japanese maker either, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, later Mitsubishi and Subaru were available as well, and race downhill in Japanese mountain passes known as touge.
Battle Gear series[ | ]
The Battle Gear evolution allows online play in both arcade and home versions and add a tuning feature for the cars. Battle Gear 4 saw the adding of European and American makers for the first time, Renault, Peugeot, Citröen, Mini, Volkswagen and Ford.
Tokyo Road Race[ | ]
The home version for Battle Gear 2 was licensed by Midas Interactive and released as a budget game named Tokyo Road Race and released by various distributors in PAL territories, hence the different packages in Europe and Oceania. Online play mode was deactivited in the Tokyo Road Race version and the game was not distributed in the American market.
Series Timeline[ | ]
[1996]
- Template:JPN 08: Side by Side (Taito JC System Type-C)
[1997]
- Template:JPN 06: Side by Side 2 Evoluzione (Taito JC System Type-C)
- Template:JPN 12: Side by Side Special (PlayStation)
[1999]
- Template:JPN 06: Battle Gear (Taito Type-Zero)
- Template:JPN 11: Side by Side Special 2000 (PlayStation) - bargain re-edition
[2000]
- Template:JPN 07: Battle Gear 2 (Taito Type-Zero)
[2001]
- Template:JPN 03: Battle Gear 2 (PlayStation 2)
[2002]
- Template:JPN 11: Battle Gear 3 (Namco System 246)
- Template:EUR 11: Tokyo Road Race (PlayStation 2) - offline only
[2003]
- Template:JPN 12: Battle Gear 3 (PlayStation 2)
- Template:JPN 12: Battle Gear 3 Limited Edition (PlayStation 2) - deluxe edition with goodies
- Template:JPN 12: Battle Gear 3 Tuned (Namco System 246)
[2005]
- Template:JPN 07: Battle Gear 4 (Taito Type X+)
[2006]
- Template:JPN 11: Battle Gear 4 Tuned (Taito Type X+)
See also[ | ]
External links[ | ]
- Side by Side homepage - Archives
- Side by Side 2 homepage - Archives
- Battle Gear 2 PS2 homepage - Home
- Battle Gear 3 PS2 homepage - Home
- Battle Gear 3 Tuned homepage - Arcade
- Battle Gear 4 homepage - Arcade
- Battle Gear series homepage - BattleGear.net