Enduro

2600 box art.

Enduro is a racing game developed by Larry Miller and published by Activision on the Atari 2600 on 1983-02-01 and later ported to the ZX Spectrum in 1984. In the game, you race in a long endurance drive. Each day you must qualify by passing your competitors. On the first day you must pass 200 racers or be disqualified, on each subsequent day, 300. The road conditions change throughout the race from ice, fog, and night driving, and your opponents get better and faster as well. You win a little trophy if you can make it five days, but the game continues so you can try for the highest score. I'm not sure what happens after 9999.9 miles or 99 days.

Although my family had an Atari in the mid-1980s, we didn't have Enduro. It wasn't until years later, long after my brother and I had an NES, that I was at my aunt's house where I discovered Enduro. I remember playing it and getting the green flags and assuming I had beaten it. My uncle told me that the game doesn't end, and, without the manual, I didn't know if there was anything else. They either gave me their Atari after I asked for it, or I borrowed it from them, because I remember playing Enduro at my house afterward and beating the first day again. Assuming there was nothing else to it, I got bored with the game and stopped playing it.

Status

I do not own Enduro and have not reached the trophy.

Review

Overall: 3/10
Best Version: Atari 2600

Good

As racing games go, this is probably the most interesting for the platform with the varying environments including ice, fog, and transition from day to night and back to day. This gives the game extra character.
The day-to-night transition with the sunset and gray morning is graphically impressive for the Atari.
The parallax scrolling of the mountains in the background is ahead of its time.
The scrolling odometer is a nice touch.
The box art is great.

Bad

Crashing looks pretty ridiculous. It's like you're driving a bouncy ball rather than an automobile.

Ugly

The actual game play is very basic. You drive, avoid cars, turn left and right, and recover from the occasional collision. That's the whole game. Even with the attractive backgrounds, you see everything the game has to offer after a few minutes.

Media

Box Art

I really like how the road folds off into the distance, shows the day-to-night transition, and becomes the trademark Activision rainbow. Not only does it look great, but it also identifies the game as a long-distance racer. This is my favorite box.
The European release re-named the game Super-Ferrari and replaced the cover art with a race car driving down a green road into a pink sunset. A bit too surreal for my tastes.
The original Activision release for the ZX Spectrum uses the Atari box art, but with a black background instead of green and loses the grid. Not as attractive in my opinion.
Activision released a cheap reprint on the Spectrum with just a small section of the original art in black and white.
Enduro was re-prublished on the Spectrum by Firebird in 1987. They gave it a great action cover, but it doesn't fit the game as well.