The Retro Critic

Hang-On

Ah Hang-On…

I thought we’d chill out for a bit and talk about a game which, I think we can all agree, is just plain good. In fact, for me, Hang-On is one of those games that’s just kind of perfect. There really isn’t anything I would change about it or add to it.

Like Tetris or Pac-Man, it feels pretty complete.

The premise is blindingly simple: you’re on a bike, you’re racing to the finish line.

That’s it.

And that’s all it needs to be!

You’re not being chased by the police, you don’t get points for drifting, the road isn’t paved with pointy turtles and your motorcycle isn’t equipped with any goofy weapons for you to destroy enemies with. The game sets out to do and to be one thing and it does it brilliantly.

Where things get a little surreal and, ultimately, a bit tricky, is if you start applying logic to Hang-On. Something which I probably should never do with retro games but…

Come on, you know me.

I like me some irrelevant debatin’!

Throughout Hang-On, you’re racing on this one, single road. A road which, strangely, has been drained of any traffic whatsoever, has been equipped with multip…

:O

WHAT?!

How are they this far already?!!!

Anyway, sorry. Got side-tracked.

You’re on a road equipped with multiple finish lines, a road that is apparently thousands of miles long since it spans completely different settings the farther you get from the starting line.

So either the road really is super long and you are, indeed, faster than a speeding bullet.

Or…

This is all taking place on some kind of crazy, really small planet connected by only one road and populated by only faceless bike-riding racers.

OR…

This is an unofficial Tron game, the road is inside The Grid and every racer is either a member of Daft Punk or CGI Jeff Bridges.

I know, I’ve gone too far…

Woops.

One of the many things I love about Hang-On is that you don’t need to like motorcycles to play it or even love it. I personally know NOTHING about bikes and couldn’t care less about ’em. But I could play and have played Hang-On for hours. Its simplicity is partly to thank for that, its controls being pretty straight-forward and its premise being instantly “gettable”.

That said, I do think that one of the reasons why the game is so playable and so addictive is that, once your bike is off and running, the game has an almost hypnotic hold on you which keeps you staring at the centre of the screen and focusing like you’ve never focused before. This is honestly one of the most immersive games I’ve played.

And no, I don’t know what these signs are depicting:

Love Boat island dolphin… guy?

Never mind.

Let’s talk about the crashes.

Crashing in this game is devastating.

It really is.

Not only does it slow you down like crazy but it is a genuinely scary experience: your bike explodes, trees burst into flames, you go flying out and land just in time to see about 10 racers you didn’t even realise were behind you stroll right past you. The best way to avoid that is to make sure you let go of the speed button when turning certain corners, keep an eye on those signs and avoid your competitors at all costs.

By the way, the game gets ridiculously hard the further you get into it, hence why I used to play it so much. You have a time limit with every level and it gets shorter and shorter just as the turns get more and more difficult and the other racers get increasingly annoying.

Hate those guys.

Like, what’s their problem? How come they never crash?

It’s just not fair…

As difficult as Hang-On gets, though, it’s never a shore to restart the game. It’s a challenge that’s enjoyable to take on because of how fast-paced the game is. It’s annoying if you miss a checkpoint but if you play your cards right, you can make it back there in a heartbeat. A lot of trial and error and patience is required to master and complete the game, something which I have yet to do but which I am planning to achieve soon enough!

Then again I have seen the ending and…

So not worth it lol

I guess if I would change one thing about the game it would be its ending but hell, it’s all about the ride.

Some games these days complicate things by giving you so many options, so many gimmicks that the game itself becomes about as important as all the behind-the-scenes stuff. You spend more time customising your cars, your teams, your characters than actually playing the game itself! With something like Hang-On, you know the score straight-away and then it just becomes about you working as hard as you possibly can to make it to the end of the game.

Sure you can always add stuff to Hang-On to make it a bit fuller and more interactive, explain its surreal set-up etc. Just look at Super Hang-On which gives you not only a map where you can choose which continent to race through…

But even gives you the option to choose what music you want to play during the level!

That’s all nice and all but really, all I need from Hang-On is a bike, a road and this funky tune:

It’s just so dramatic, exciting, stressful and epic.

I love it.

(awesome sound effects during the game as well)

You can play Hang-On and its sequels on many consoles but whatever the closest version to the arcade one is (except for the arcade version itself, obviously), that’s the one you should really hunt down.

Or get Shenmue or Shenmue II and play it on there!

Simple, to the point, exciting, badass: check out Hang-On if you can.

The original really is a must-play.

No, Sega Saturn.

Just…

No.