Remembering classic games: Big Run (1989)

Never has such a richly detailed racing game had such a simplistic title. Big Run sounds like you’re trying to explain the concept of long distance rallying via sign language to a super clever captive gorilla.

Don’t let the monosyllabic title fool you though, this is, for 1989, a staggeringly accurate recreation of the Paris-Dakar rally, starring an unlicensed take on the Porsche 959 which had won the event three years earlier in 1986. The in-game route mirrored that of the real event held earlier in the year, starting in Tunisia and taking in Libya, Niger, Mali and Guinea, before finishing in Senegal.

It might sound like a stretch to describe scenery entirely constructed of flat, 16-bit sprites as evocative but, as Big Run progresses from Tunis all the way to Dakar, each African country you traverse has a unique flavour. Backgrounds, road surfaces and even the foliage lining the special stages all change and evolve as you cross the continent. Meanwhile split routes, sheer cliffsides and wide dune-hopping sections keep things varied from a driving perspective, as if dodging a small army of Mitsubishi Pajeros wasn’t challenging enough.

Like all arcade racers of the era it’s harder than a granite statue of Vinnie Jones, with brutally exacting time limits for every stage, but skilful players will see the finish line in Dakar in a little over 10 minutes. While that’s probably about the same time it takes you to pop to your local supermarket, Big Run somehow manages to make it feel like a perfectly condensed rally raid event.

And your reward for crossing the line at the end of each stage? You get to celebrate with an adorable family of ostriches who, over the course of the rally, appear to have beaten you to every single time control. We knew those things could run quickly, but seriously?