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San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing for Nintendo 64
San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing for Nintendo 64 sends you up San Francisco's hills in fast cars. You drive past recognisable buildings, shoot across junctions and use steep streets as ramps. Beyond the normal route lie shortcuts that you discover only by trying a tunnel, opening or unusual jump. A bad landing can make your car explode; the game then puts you back on the track. The challenge is to maintain speed without taking every corner or jump blindly.
You can also drive the six regular tracks backwards, mirrored or with both settings combined. Circuit links these variations into a series of twenty-four races in which you earn points. In Practice you drive alone and can search for shorter routes without the usual time pressure. You choose a car from different performance classes and decide whether to change gears yourself. Settings including fog affect how much of the next corner you can see.
You can race alone or with one other player in split-screen, including during a Circuit series. Each player needs their own Nintendo 64 controller. A separate Controller Pak stores your data; the password system is also available for resuming a Circuit. A Controller Pak is therefore not required to play.
Region and language
Our Nintendo 64 games are PAL editions, unless stated otherwise. This product contains a loose cartridge for the European market. A box is only included if explicitly stated in the product details. We note any different region in the product details. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
With San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing for Nintendo 64, you receive a loose cartridge. A box and manual are not included unless we explicitly state otherwise in the product details. This is the standard way we supply this copy.
The history of San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing
Atari Games originally made San Francisco Rush for arcades, where it appeared in 1996. The Nintendo 64 adaptation followed in 1997. Ed Logg and his team handled that transition within Atari Games. Developer Cameron Petty later described how they made the game run on the console's more limited hardware and added extra settings. This explains why the home version uses the same recognisable city and large jumps, but offers more ways to set up a race to your preferences.
The developers combined a physics-based driving model with tracks on which cars can jump implausibly far. San Francisco provided hills, junctions and landmarks for this, but the routes were built for racing and detours. You learn not only where the corner is: you also discover which opening beside the street becomes a useful shortcut. A jump therefore works as a choice between gaining time and risking a crash, rather than simply as decoration along the route.
On Nintendo 64, that approach made room for longer sessions. The Circuit series has you master several track variations in succession, while Practice encourages you to investigate individual sections. A shared television replaces the separate screens of linked arcade machines. Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA and San Francisco Rush 2049 are later, separate games. This cartridge contains the original Nintendo 64 adaptation of Extreme Racing, not a collection of those sequels.
Similar games for Nintendo 64
Mario Kart 64 and San Francisco Rush have you memorise corners and shortcuts, but interrupt a race in different ways. Mario Kart uses shells and bananas that let you hinder another racer. Rush lets the track itself determine the risk: a high jump or bad landing can cost you your lead. Rush therefore focuses more on choosing a route and controlling your car than on holding onto an offensive item.
Diddy Kong Racing connects its races to an island adventure with doors, balloons and bosses. San Francisco Rush chooses a more direct structure with individual races, practice and Circuit standings. Both games have shortcuts to find, but Diddy also lets you use planes and hovercrafts. In Rush, it is mainly the direction or mirroring of the same city track that changes how you must approach a familiar jump and the next corner.
F-Zero X and San Francisco Rush both ask you to look ahead at high speed. F-Zero X's hovercraft race over futuristic tracks and use shield energy for extra boost. Rush keeps you with cars, city streets and large jumps. There you look for a favourable landing or an opening between buildings. Both reward a consistent racing line, but Rush gives you more reason to search beyond the visible main route.
Wave Race 64 and San Francisco Rush make you lose speed when you misjudge a corner or landing. In Wave Race, moving water changes how your jet ski responds, while buoys indicate which side you need to pass. Rush has fixed streets you can memorise, with shortcuts and jumps providing the main variation. Practising a route there mainly means getting the right entrance, speed and landing to follow one another.
V-Rally Edition 99 shares cars, analogue steering and two-player split-screen races with San Francisco Rush. V-Rally demands more attention to surfaces, tuning and your co-driver's instructions on rally routes. Rush focuses on city tracks with striking jumps and hidden passages. Where you want to correct a sliding car in good time in V-Rally, in Rush you are often trying to execute a daring shortcut more effectively.
