by Ron Enderland

Racing games have long been a staple of the computing world. From the earliest BASIC simulations to graphics-laden presentations requiring Pentium power, this genre has always been well represented.

Eat My Dust carries on the tradition fairly well. While not truly outstanding, it is a well-put-together offering that provides a lot of bang for the buck. When you start the game, you are greeted with the selection screen. Here, you choose various options including Driver, Vehicle, Terrain, and Degree of Difficulty. The race itself is best experienced with a steering wheel. A joystick is the next best choice, with keyboard controls strictly to be used by office hounds grabbing a heat when the boss ain’t around.

You can play one player, two player, or on-line through the internet. One player pits you against four computer opponents. Two player, as you might expect, puts you up against a live rival and three simulated ones. The internet option connects you to a website where challenges can be offered or accepted by other racers. On to the game.

The racecourse difficulty factor determines the number of curves that are included. In addition, "Road Hog" appears from time to time. His mission is to goof up the race. Don’t take his attacks personally, as he is just as likely to wreck your opponents as you. As you race, you see rubber chickens, beehives, golf bags, and various other items lying in the road. These can be picked up and stored for flinging at your competition.

The key to winning races seems to be to nail as many of your opponents at the start of the race as possible. If you can zip around them in their confused state (caused by flying bees, golf clubs, and, of course, rubber chickens), then you can coast to a victory relatively unscathed.

The graphics can be changed from Ultra-Lo to Ultra-Hi, with five different steps in between. Interestingly, my Pentium 90 with 20 MB of RAM didn’t seem to run any differently at either extreme. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of herky-jerkiness no matter what resolution.

Alas, the world of professional sports seems to have rubbed off on the programmers. You can set up four different "taunts" to fire at your fellow racer on the internet. Well, they’re in good taste, unlike the clearly lip-read expressions uttered by our sports heroes . . . To sum up, this is a nice little offering. The four different racecourses, as well as the internet competition option, promise anyone aged eight and up a lot of entertainment.