Video Game Vintage Title: Street Racer

Street Racer

Street Racer is an early racing video game developed for the Atari 2600, then known as the VCS . It was programmed by Larry Kaplan and released by Atari in September 1977 as one of the nine Atari 2600 launch titles. The game was also released by Sears by their Tele-Games product line as Speedway II.

Reception
As one of the earliest games written for the platform, Street Racer suffered from unattractive, blocky graphics. According to Kaplan himself, later racing games released for the Atari, such as Activision's 1982 games Barnstorming and Grand Prix, were able to offer improved graphics and gameplay. In a 2007 interview, Kaplan was asked what he would change about any of the games he had written:

Street Racer is the game that lacks good game play. I took out the moving playfield because it didn't flow right (it tended to flicker). If I could change the game to have a smooth-scrolling playfield, it would make the game play better.

�Larry Kaplan, Digital Press interview

Both The Video Game Critic and Gamasutra have described the "Number cruncher" sub-game as a highlight of the game. The Video Game Critic gave the game a "D" rating.

Kaplan later went on to become one of the founders of Activision, where he created and programmed Kaboom!, one of the 10 top-selling games for the Atari 2600.