Change Lanes

From StrategyWiki, the video game walkthrough and strategy guide wiki
Box artwork for Change Lanes.
Box artwork for Change Lanes.
Change Lanes
Developer(s)Taito America Corporation
Publisher(s)Taito America Corporation
Year released1983
System(s)Arcade
Japanese titleチェンジレーンズ
Genre(s)Racing
Players1
ModesSingle player
LinksChange Lanes ChannelSearchSearch
Change Lanes marquee

Change Lanes is a racing arcade game which was released by Taito America Corporation in 1983; it utilizes a Zilog Z80 (running at 5 MHz), and a Motorola M68705 (running at 2 MHz), with two General Instrument AY-3-8910s running at 1.25 MHz for audio. Its designer, Dave Needle, originally offered it to Bally Midway after his work on Space Encounters (but they'd turned it down) - and the player must use a steering wheel and gear shifter to take control of an amphibious red car (with a single pedal, to make it accelerate). It can drive anywhere, on roads and in rivers, and can crash into CPU-controlled cars or scenery objects countless times; however, doing so consumes fuel and once the car runs out of fuel, the game is over. Once you reach a checkpoint, your car will be refuelled and you will receive bonus points for any fuel you have remaining (along with your driving skill) - and, once you reach the fourth checkpoint, you will receive bonus fuel. As well as CPU-controlled cars, you will have to watch out for bridges, mines, icebergs, pylons, and dead ends (the last of which is the reason why the gear shifter is forward/reverse, as opposed to low/high), along with heat-seeking missiles, which can blow your car up to immediately end your game; once you have reached that ninth checkpoint, you will be proclaimed "Supreme Leader of the World", but the game shall not finish at that point. Instead, it will start again - and the two screenshots are inaccurate due to the game's nonworking status in MAME.