Video Game / Cruis'n

Cruis'n is a series of arcade Racing Games developed by Eugene Jarvis as a coproduction of his employer Midway Games and Nintendo. The premise is about as simple and arcade-y as it comes — you drive a car across a voyage along a set of tracks that are confined to a specific theme, depending on which game you are playing. Your goal is to come in first on each course and attempt to make it to the very end, while also dodging all the oncoming traffic. Fret not, however, if you run into the traffic, as your car will only comically fly through the air before landing back on track unscathed.

The series began in 1994 in arcades with the release of Cruis'n USA, though the game was created as a response to the developing change in home consoles. Sega was touting that their then-upcoming Sega Saturn would be able to handle arcade-perfect ports of their latest 3-D graphics arcade games, like the sit-down racer Daytona USA and the fighting game Virtua Fighter. To counter, Sony, preparing to launch the first PlayStation 1, signed a deal to get Namco, Sega's arcade rival, to exclusively port their own racing game Ridge Racer and fighting game Tekken to the new system. Nintendo, not to be left out, wanted their own games in those genres that could use show off the capabilities of the then-upcoming Nintendo Ultra 64 (which later became the Nintendo 64).

So they struck a deal with Midway, another major arcade player, to produce a racing game and a fighting game that Midway would release in arcades and Nintendo would later publish as launch titles for the N64. They divvied up the work, each overseeing one of the games. With Midway already having their own rather popular fighting game franchise to devote time to (Mortal Kombat. You may have heard of it.) Nintendo (or more accurately, Rare, which was part owned by while Nintendo at the time) would oversee the fighting game, Killer Instinct. Meanwhile, Jarvis's team at Midway would handle the racing game.

It was (heavily) implied that the games were running on the same hardware that would eventually be seen in the home console proper. This turned out to be actually untrue, however. While the arcade version of Killer Instinct did use a system board based on the preliminary specs for the N64, the final consumer hardware turned out to be much simplified for cost reasons. Meanwhile, Cruis'n USA just used a standard proprietary Midway arcade board that was nothing like the N64. (Also, the first Killer Instinct actually never saw an N64 release. When the hardware was delayed, Nintendo decided to jump on the popularity of the game to bolster the later years of the Super NES with a surprisingly solid but objectively inferior port. The arcade sequel did get a proper N64 port, however.)

Two sequels followed — Cruis'n World in 1996, and Cruis'n Exotica in 2000. The former has the player traversing famous locations all around the world as opposed to a single country, while the latter takes the player across exotic places such as Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and Mars. Both of those also received N64 ports.

A few more titles have been sprinkled about through the years, including a Game Boy Advance spinoff Cruis'n Velocity (the only game with no involvement of Eugene Jarvis), a Wii reboot simply titled Cruis'n (which is actually a Dolled-Up Installment of a licensed arcade racer, The Fast and the Furious though it was already seen as a Spiritual Successor as Eugene Jarvis headed development of that game at his new company Raw Thrills) and a 2017 revival called Cruis'n Blast also released in arcades by Raw Thrills, which received a Nintendo Switch port in 2021.

---

This series provides examples of:

• Adapted Out:
  • The Lamborghini cars are not present in the Switch port of Blast, likely because the license contract with Lamborghini expired during the production of the port. Arcade units built after the license expired (or ones that updated the software) also don't have them.
  • The Wii game, being in reality a port of the first Fast and the Furious arcade game without the license, adapts out the F&F trademarks, though strangely doesn't change the name of the track based on the climactic Race Wars event in the first film, probably the only truly F&F-specific thing in the game.
• Africa Is a Country: Amongst the track names in World such as "China", "France", and "Australia", there is a savannah-based track simply called "Africa." Even weirder - there is another African track that's set in Egypt! Fortunately, the Nintendo 64 port of World changed the name of the track to Kenya for the purpose of avoiding this trope.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • In USA, the end of the Grand Canyon track features Mount Rushmore, which is about 1,000 miles away. In the game, it only takes a couple minutes to reach it. The game actually covers it up by having the player pin go from Arizona to South Dakota in the map.
  • In World, the England race goes from London to Stonehenge, which is 75 miles away; also, the New York track looks like a mashup of everything the city has, as it goes from the Cross-Bronx Expressway to South Manhattan, close to the Statue of Liberty. The Germany track is obviously based off the Black Forest, with Neuschwanstein Castle being visible in the background, yet the woman's voice says "Wow! The Berlin Wall!". Berlin and the Black Forest are 400 miles apart.
  • In the N64 port of Exotica, there's a mode where each course can be run as a two-leg race, with start and finish points provided. Aside from both legs being indistinguishable in terms of scenery, the first leg of the Korea race states that it goes from Pyongyang to Seoul. Problem is, in real life, there are no roads in either Korea that cross the Demilitarized Zone. Not only that, but the beginning of the race also clearly shows South Korean flags.
• Artistic License – Physics: There is absolutely no attempt at realism. When running into other cars, even if it's head-on, the worst thing that happens is that your car flies through the air a bit before landing back on the ground and moving on like nothing happened. You can also plow through things like lamp posts and telephone poles with ease.
  • In an example that crosses over with Gameplay and Story Segregation, the Moon is only shown to have 1/6 of Earth's gravity in its intro cutscene. During the race, the car still jumps at the same height as on Earth.
  • In Exotica, the cars don't run any differently even if they are racing on the seabed or in Mars (whose gravity is 1/3 of Earth's). For that matter, drivers in their convertibles are able to breathe just fine in these environments.
• Atlantis: A track in Exotica is set here, however, during the actual race, you mostly go through generic underwater sceneries such as reefs and coral caves, and the only hint of an actual lost city is in the Parthenon-like ruins near the finish line.
• Bowdlerization:
  • The console ports of USA and World suffered from Nintendo's censorship practices. Among the things censored were:
    • The Ludicrous Gibs; animals no longer preside on the edges of tracks to get hit, and in cases when they cross the tracks, they are placed too far for the cars to hit them. Incidentally, the roadkill issue happens to be the reason why the game was taken off the N64 launch schedule in the first place.
    • The woman at the end of the race if you place in first; in the original arcade version, she wore only a bikini and skirt, but the console port of USA puts a T-shirt over the bikini top. In the console port of World, she is back to wearing a bikini, but she is disabled by default; you can enable her again in the options menu. Curiously, despite this being the case, the woman who waves the starting flag is still only wearing a bikini (possibly because she's much smaller and lower-res).
    • Bill Clinton in the Jacuzzi at the end of both games (and Exotica as well); you now only see your car on a podium in USA. Semi-justified in World as the final cutscene now leads to an extra track.
• Big Applesauce: There are New York City based tracks in World and the Wii game.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Yeti Adrenaline in the Switch port of Blast is a snowy landscape populated by giant Yeti.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: In the arcade versions, if you fail to come in first place, you can still progress forward if you insert another credit. In the home console port of USA, this is dropped and now coming in first is mandatory to move forward. In the console version of World, you can still move forward if you don't come in first, but your ranking will suffer due to it.
• Build Like an Egyptian: The Egypt track in World has multiple pyramids and Sphinxes.
• Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: Averted. In Blast, your car passes through the tornado in Death Valley without any problems whatsoever. Twice.
• Dolled-Up Installment: The Wii game, simply title Cruis'n, is simply a port of an arcade game based on The Fast and the Furious with (almost) all the references to the film removed. Though to be fair, that game barely has anything to do with the movie and is a Spiritual Successor to the Cruis'n series with the license slapped on it to begin with.
• Earthquakes Cause Fissures: In the arcade version of Blast, an earthquake creates a fissure in an airfield in the Death Valley track that the player car leaps over.
• Easter Egg: On some tracks, if you switch the camera into the first person view, you will occasionally see bugs splatter on the windshield. Of course, you probably already knew this if you watched the Attract Mode on USA.
• Eiffel Tower Effect:
  • Many of World's tracks. Australia is set in the Outback with Uluru present in the end of the track, France takes place from Chambord (with its iconic castle) to Paris (with the Eiffel Tower of course), Egypt has you drive inside the Pyramids, China has you drive through the Great Wall and Forbidden City, and much more.
  • Blast's London track crams in as many famous London landmarks as possible in a single race track. Singapore from the same game features clones of the Merlion statue in different sizes.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Tracks in Blast typically have all hell break loose over the course of the race.
  • Death Valley: A tornado appears, blowing up the NPC vehicles and a train (but weirdly doesn't affect the player cars), as well as a giant earthquake in an airbase that creates a fissure.
  • Madagascar: Lots of dinosaurs roaming around the track.
  • London: The London Eye detaches and runs havoc around the city.
  • Singapore: A lightning storm that can topple a skyscraper sideways.
  • Averted in Rio de Janeiro. Instead of a massive disaster happening in the city, it's Carnival, baby!
• Fauxrrari: Generic cars based on real-world models were used in the first two games and the N64 port of Exotica. The fictional cars' names were either gaudy or play on national stereotypes, like for example the Toyota Supra Expy "Kamikaze AWD". The arcade version of Exotica and later games in the series eventually featured licensed vehicles (Cruis'n Blast originally featured cars licensed from Lamborghini but lost the license for later arcade releases so dropped those vehicles in favor of more cars from their other licensed manufacturers - the Police Cruiser managing to retain a lot of obvious nods to the fact it was originally the Lamborghini Veneno).
• Flying Saucer: The console port of Blast offers a UFO as a vehicle, as well as remixed tracks which show the locations under an alien invasion.
• Forgotten Theme Tune Lyrics: In the arcade version of Blast, the music that accompanies the Singapore race is the instrumental version of the game's Title Theme Tune.
• Green Hill Zone: The very first track you encounter in Exotica is Korea, which is very green to be said. It's mostly based on Jeju Island, but near the end you visit an urban area that is meant to represent Seoul.
• Hippie Van: Exotica features a Volkswagen Bus as one of its usable cars. Not only does the car have vibrant multi-colored flowers painted on it, but the in-game name of the car is called the "Hippyhauler".
• Jungle Japes: The Amazon in Exotica. Dinosaurs included.
• Large Ham: The male announcer in the arcade version of Blast.
  "OH NO! A TORNADO!"
  "EAAAAARTHQUAAAAKE!"
  "IT'S CARNIVAL!"
  "THAT PLANE IS ON FIRE!"
• Living Dinosaurs:
  • Exotica has the Amazon track populated with various dinosaurs.
  • Blast contains dinosaurs in the Madagascar track and offers a Triceratops as an actual playable vehicle. The Nintendo Switch port of Blast has an entire cup dedicated to these creatures.
• Ludicrous Gibs: In some tracks such as Africa/Kenya in World and Death Valley in Blast, you can run through animals and they'll disintegrate into a mess of bodily chunks.
• Purposefully Overpowered: The Speed Demon in the N64 port of World, which is unlocked after maxing out your score at 9999 points in Championship Mode. It is the fastest car in the game by a long shot.
• Recycled In Space: In the N64 port of Cruis'n World, the final track is on the moon. The entirety of Cruis'n Exotica can also qualify.
• Remixed Level: In the Switch version of Blast, each track across the different cups has an alternate variant, five of them based on the tracks from the original arcade version. For example, "Twister Terror" is the arcade version's Death Valley but at sunset and with cop cars pursuing the drivers. It is remixed later on into "Desert Escape", turning the desert into a snowy wasteland and taking drivers along a new route while copters open fire on the drivers.
• Silliness Switch:
  • Some of the unlockable cars in the console port of World qualify. You can drive a police car, a taxi, a monster truck, and a school bus. That is equally as fast as nearly every other car in the game.
  • Somehow, the bonus cars in Blast are even more ridiculous. Not only do you have cars that are otherwise completely unsuitable for racing in the real world like a British taxi cab and a double decker bus, you also have "cars" like a Roman chariot, and a Triceratops.
  • The Nintendo Switch version of Blast adds a selection of even more bizarre vehicle choices, including a UFO, a hammerhead shark, a tank, and a unicorn.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: The '90s trilogy offer some of the biggest examples. The cars and track maps are rendered in 3D (although the cars' textures are slapped-on 2D, which makes them look somewhat crude), but most roadside objects are 2D, including those that you can plow into. Exotica adds more 3D objects to the scenery, but still uses plenty of 2D.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The N64 version of Exotica didn't feature licensed cars, but a few of the cars included are clearly based on ones licensed for the arcade version, such as the Chevrolet Corvette and Jeep Wrangler.
• Title Drop: In Cruis'n World, when your race car is shown being loaded onto a space shuttle for the Moon, an unseen driver will say "We're cruis'n now!".
• Title Theme Tune: Each game has one.
• Toilet Humor: In the India track in Exotica, there is a large elephant facing away from the screen by one of the bends. Passing it will result in elephant poop getting flung into the screen.
• Trailer Park Tornado Magnet: Possibly downplayed, while there is a tornado and a trailer park in Blast's Death Valley track, neither of them clash with each other. Instead, the trailers can be destroyed by the player car.
• Under the Sea: The Atlantis track in Exotica.
• Wacky Racing: When the series has vehicles like an army Humvee, a big rig, a three-wheeled truck, a Deadhead van, and an old station wagon, it's a step in this direction. The courses take the series the rest of the way, including routes through an Egyptian pyramid, along the Great Wall of China, through a prehistoric jungle, and even on Mars.
• World Tour: Cruis'n World, Exotica and Blast all have races spanning different corners of the globe.