It was impossible to walk past Hang On in the arcades. The big red life-sized motorbike with the screen as its windshield that used tilting rather than turning to steer your bike was an unbelievable sight. One of the funniest things I ever saw was a small child screaming and rolling on the floor to play the machine until his parents gave in and put the money in the slot. The child could barely get the tips of his toes on the floor and when he tried to tilt the bike it moved no more than 5 degrees. This meant that his father had to stand at the back of the bike pushing it either way to help out, with every push derided by the child who wanted to do it themselves. 

The arcade version in all its glory

A reasonable version of Hang On was packed in with Sega Master Systems and this excellent racer was a great stage for a sequel. For ’Super’ Hang On the large arcade bike was replaced by a smaller cabinet where the bike moved, but the monitor (no doubt the cause of most of the weight) stayed static. This made the game far more accessible, but unfortunately lost some of the grandness the Hang On had enjoyed. It was a pity though as the game was a great improvement.

Super Hang On is unmistakable with its huge onscreen super-bike traversing the undulating courses set across different continents. Being a race against time rather than against NPCs the game is very similar to Outrun and the success of this conversion makes the disappointing Megadrive version of Outrun (which despite being in the arcades a year before SHO, was not converted until 1991) even more of a disappointment.

As with many of the Megadrive versions of SEGA arcade hits, a new mode was added specifically for home users. Original Mode allowed players to earn money for racing and use this to beef up their bike or hire a grease monkey, adding to the games longevity.
 

The Megadrive port. Not quite arcade perfect, but a damn fine effort

To this day, much like its sister Out Run, Super Hang On is still the best known and loved arcade motorcycle racer and one of SEGA’s most well known IPs. So isn’t it time for a next-gen SHO2 (or would it be HO3)? Until that arrives you can do no better than the Megadrive game and considering it can be found on the Mega Games I collection that appears in every car boot sale around the land, there are no excuses.