Turbo

Put your road-handling skills to the test in this grueling cross-county race. Unexpected changes in road conditions, such as snow, wreckless competitors, and emergency routed ambulances further the challenge. Points are accumulated by staying on the road and by passing cars. To finish a round, you must pass and stay ahead of at least 30 cars. In round one, you have unlimited lives. One bonus car is awarded up to a total of four for each subsequent round finished. The game ends when you run out of time without passing 30 cars or when you crash your last car.

Avoid collisions with other race cars and pass and stay ahead of 30 cars before the time expires for continued play. The game continues until you run out of time without passing 30 cars or crash your last car. There is no ultimate destination. The progression of levels is signified by the "Round" indicator in the upper left corner, width of the driving area and the number of opponent cars. At certain places in the game, an ambulance will appear from behind, overtake, and actually pass your race car!

When extended play is awarded and the gameplay restarts, you can drive right through other vehicles without penalty for a second or so. A couple of seconds after the yellow flag shows on screen, an ambulance will come up behind you. Drive right in front of the ambulance until it almost hits you, move to the right while it passes you no other cars ever show on the right side, although puddles do, then trail the path that has been cleared by the ambulance after it passes you to avoid any other oncoming cars for a couple seconds. Avoid the edges of the screen when a scene migration is coming up. All migrations from turns give a split second where the road becomes straight -- even if it migrates to a turn in the same direction. Migrations to and from turns are the most dangerous as the other cars on the road including yours sometimes typically jump to the other side of the screen right after the migration. Driving with a loose grip and spinning the wheel will give you much better control for getting out of the way quick as the car doesn't move much when gently steering.

Unlike most games, your score is maintained to the left of the screen by means of a LED panel. The panel also holds the current high scores. The cabinet has no marquee, so the name of the game only appears on the monitor glass above the screen and on the full game-length side art. On all versions Full upright, mini, and cockpit, there is an oil and temp gauge on either side of the wheel that light up. The cockpit version has a working LED tachometer.

The Turbo board set consists of three boards. The smaller board contains the sounds, with individual knobs to control the volume for specific noises. The larger two PCBs are the logic board and the video board. The entire game is driven by an 5MHz Z80 running encrypted program data. It is possible that later revisions of the boards may have dropped the encryption.

The cabinet contains three speakers with individually controlled volume. The first pair of speakers are mid-range and play most of the sounds. The third is a very large woofer and plays only the purr of your engine.

The cabinet comes with a Nanao 20-inch color raster monitor that seems to resist screen burn extremely well. The florescent bulb that is above the screen and under the Turbo logo is a standard Sylvania F14T12/CW 14W bulb or equivalent and can be found in a standard hardware or lighting store.

A hacked video board was recently uncovered that made the player's car double width and double height. Naturally, this hacked version was incredibly difficult to play on higher levels with the narrower roads. It is unknown if this hack has been published or not.