Car Wars
Silly Rabbit, cars are for fighting!
Last week I mentioned that racing and fighting were the “Ur-sports.” But sometimes genres blur. The chocolate gets into the peanut butter and the line between racing and fighting gets smudged. Think of the Circus Maximus, where chariots slide around the corners while drivers whip each other …
Chad Irby’s and Steve Jackson’s Car Wars doesn’t fully mix racing and fighting … its mostly fighting. In a future America tricked out cars attack each other possibly on the open road, possibly as a savage new sport. It’s an idea that pops up from time to time in dystopian science fiction1.
Each car2 has ratings on speed, acceleration, suspension, body and is tricked out with weapons. Oh so many weapons. While you could drive these cars on a race course, the real theme is ultra-violent demolition derby. Sure, you could play chess, but sometimes don’t you want to savor the simple pleasure of speed + explosions?
The public certainly did. If you walked into any game store in the 80s you’d see Car Wars and expansions, such as Uncle Albert’s Auto Stop and Gunnery Shop 2035 Catalog. Players would play with cardboard cut outs of the cars or use Hot Wheels (or other miniatures).
Cars Wars crossed into the computer world with Autoduel, a licensed implementation that mixes combat with a role playing aspect where you try to eke out money to buy better cars and weapons, then perform courier missions up and down the eastern seaboard. I never played Car Wars on the table, but I remember Autoduel fondly. Apparently Steve Jackson does too, as he’s put out a public request for the source code so that they can do a faithful reimplementation.
If there’s any strike against entering Car Wars into The 100 Most Influential Games of the 20th Century, it would be that the idea of combat between complex vehicles represented by stat sheets was done earlier with Star Fleet Battles or that both were overshadowed by BattleTech. Having never played Car Wars, I’m on the fence as to whether it merits it’s own entry3. But something likely does … “Vehicular Combat Games” merits its own (quite lengthy) Wikipedia page.
Administration — I’m already looking towards the end of the year, which will have a retrospective of the games reviewed so far. If you’d like to vote on which games should make the cut, and which should miss it, please do so on the list I’ve created on Board Game Geek.
I’ve read one inspiration: Harlan Ellison’s Along the Scenic Route. The game also cites Alan Dean Foster’s Why Johnny Can’t Speed and Deathrace 2000.
or van, motorcycle, RV, or what not.
I personally find SFB to be great; but perhaps Car Wars merits the entry and SFB is the footnote, but given Star Trek’s huge cultural cachet in the 20th century, I suspect that isn’t true.