Racing / Racing - Cars · 1982
Baja Buggies
Published by Gamestar · Developed by [n/a]
atarimania.com — atari-400-800-xl-xe-games-baja-buggies-469
Information
- Genre
- Racing - Cars
- Language
- Machine Language
- Controls
- Joystick
- Players
- 1, Demo
- Programmer(s)
- Ugrin, Dan
- Graphic Artist(s)
- [n/a]
- Sound
- [n/a]
- Cover Artist(s)
- [unknown]
- Year
- 1982
- Publisher
- Gamestar
- Developer
- [n/a]
- Country
- USA
- License
- Commercial
- Medium
- Tape, Disk
- Rarity
- 8 (Tape), 8 (Disk)
- Serial
- GS001
Votes / Statistics
Rating: 8.1/10 · Votes: 32 · Downloads: 3,260 · Hits: 16,612
Additional Comments
Screenshots (4)
Cover Art (5)
Instructions (12)
Ads (1)
Book / Magazine Reviews (1)
Electronic Fun · May, 1983 · Rating: 3 / 4
Right away when you boot up Baja Buggies, it appeals to you with some spiffy 3-D visuals. The tires spin and the craggy mountain range in the distance scrolls right and left as you snake through the turns. In front of you, the scenery is desert-crisp. A brown expanse of sand extends to the mountain range. Behind the mountains is a fine strip of crimson, suggesting dawn. Above you, the sky is a sharp desert-blue, cloudless except for one creamy cumulus, which also scrolls.
This is a racing game of the Turbo school. A pair of dotted lines that fade into the middle distance shows you your course. You control right and left movement with the joystick and brake with the red "fire" button. Rear stopping lights glow when you brake. As you get up to about 80 (as indicated on the speedometer on the bottom of the screen) you start to pass other drivers.
Baja Buggies is tricky. It's easy to get trapped on the outside of a curve and careen out of control into the pipes of the guy in front of you. There are five levels of difficulty. At the harder levels, the buggies you try to pass leave you less room on the road.
The game would get our top rating except for a few flaws. 1) The sound is drab, a mindless revving engine and a dull white-noise crash. 2) There's no accelerator, only a brake. 3) There's no shift, though this is not so important. 4) Joystick control is not as fast as paddles would be. Why not design this for paddles, since it's only left and right movement?
Keep your eye on the middle of the screen to watch cars appearing instead of watching your own buggy. Look for patterns.
Comments (10)
the big m — 27 Aug 2025
Finally Played after Many Years The Good As an Intellivision owner back in the 80s, I would buy video and computer game magazine’s. I remember seeing ads for this game with envy. Well, I finally got to play it!….For 1982, watching the giant car sprite and rotating wheels was a good visual effect. The Bad Amateur Race 1 is the easiest level. At first, it seems like there’s a bug and you can’t pass 10th. But no. The other 9 cars are ahead of the pack! The Bottom Line I finished 8th by staying in the middle of the road. Now for Pro, you figure it out….A simple racer but visually excellent for 1982 and fun too.
scott stilphen — 3 Oct 2023
Either this is a prototype, or someone hacked the prototype of Night Rally to look like Baja Buggies.
Atari A to Z (Pete Davison) — 16 Jul 2022
This unusual little racer eschews the usual timers-and-checkpoints structure in favour of an endurance race against 80 opponents. Can you make it to the frontrunners before they cross the line? And when you've done that, can you get away without another initial-entering mishap?! Let's Play! https://youtu.be/_-67elcB4Ko
Thomas Cherryhomes — 8 Feb 2021
This game is simply not possible to traverse past 9th place and get on the scoreboard... I'm suspicious...
Greenchili — 29 Aug 2016
@Raven... You sound like me.. I used to add reset vectors to a lot of binaries that were not reset proof all the time.. LOL
rave.N — 3 Dec 2015
As long as we're missing the original software scans, this file version here now 14336 bytes was tampered with by somebody in the past. They mainly removed a title screen saying BAJA BUGGIES in red, (C) 1982 in black, and GAMESTAR INC blue. This screen data is still in the file, screen display instruction was removed. He/she also changed the start pointer to open on the high score list, mimicking the cassette version, but I probably wouldn't bother writing this comment if he/she hadn't also destroyed the Reset Vector when editing. This file crashes on reset but a good cracked version Resets ok. So there you have it, another peeve concerning A8 software - crashing when pressing Reset button. Many "cracked" versions of any title neglect emulating behavior of original commercial releases. I find it easy to add Reset trapping onto files that lack it. It can't be done if the original author didn't design reset handling, but if the vector got lost in the crack process, it's a cinch to correct. My file versions of Adept Archon II and Nadral were missing Reset handling, and I fixed them both up.
rave.N — 1 Dec 2015
File version here at 14336 bytes in length, has a corruption. The final 243 bytes are appended garbage that should be removed, resulting in a 14093 byte file. SEE Lebeau's "Gauntlet" having the black sky and pink - purple terrain, for more details.
Geoman — 3 Nov 2011
One of my favorite racing games back then!
http://gwobby.webs.com/ — 19 Jul 2010
A bit easy on Amateur but a good challenge on Pro... overtake by hanging over the edge of the track... not as much fun as Pole Position but that was always too easy as you could stay in the middle of the track!
Jim Kuchera — 30 Dec 2006
This simple little racing game is very straight forward, and much fun to play. The graphics are block graphics, and the little red dashes indicating roadway are really primitive. But this is the kind of game little tykes love to play with one another. And play they will! This is a hard one to drop. I like it certainly as much as Pole Position. It's the same premise.