Did you know there was a follow-up game to I76 called Interstate '82? I was "there" when I76 came out, and bought it and the Arsenal Pack (and the Gold version!)... but I don't have any recollection of a game called Interstate '82. Yet it existed, and also starred Groove Champion & Co.

I guess it only got middling reviews... here's a review from Adrenaline Vault http://www.avault.com/reviews/pc/interstate-82-pc-review/. Did any of you guys own/play it? How was it? Would it be a GOG-worthy addition?

I remember reading the rather poor reviews when it came out and skipping it. My recollection is that one of the main gripes was that it felt more "arcade-y", no longer modeling damage to specific parts of the cars but instead just giving each car a health bar. Sort of more Twisted Metal than Interstate '76. But I haven't played it myself.

Too bad. Although I liked I76 well enough it still might be fun to have if the price was low enough.

You can find the demo for it as easily as you can for '76. If you want it to run on Vista at least, set the compatibility for all EXEs (I think it's just one) to Windows 95, and make sure you set an exception for the EXE(s) in the Data Execution Prevention list. Oh and if I remember right, you have a better chance of it working right if you leave the resolution at 640x480 and if you don't have any other windows open.

I've played the demo. You can get out of the car in this game, contrary to Skeeter's mantra in '76. If you do get out, don't get shot. It's like real life at that point--one bullet or one hit from a car kills you. Still best to stay in the car. During a mission you can commandeer and keep any car that doesn't have a driver currently in it. Realism in some ways has been preserved, and in other ways has been reduced. Yes, there is only a health bar. You will not have specific areas of armor damaged, but I think your various systems and weapons can get individually knocked out kinda like before. The good news is they have the same voice actors for Taurus and Groove. Evidently though, not seen before I '82 but according to the intro movie, Groove smokes cigarettes. You get to see everyone's face in a lot more detail--they all have mouths now and you finally get to see Jade's pretty face (in the context of Taurus having recurring nightmares).

If I buy it, I would do it for the story over anything else, although all they did was take the historical account of the iran contra affair and twist it, suggesting that through a ridiculous fantasy perspective that the storywriter(s) was/were trying to push a piece of their own political viewpoint.

I have '82. I've considered trying to get it to run, but given that '76 was unrunnable on Win7x64 I haven't actually tried yet. I wasn't nearly as impressed by it when it was new, and went back to '76

I wonder if we'll all need some kind of "XPBox" in the near future, just to run WinXP games on Win7 and beyond? Or would VMWare work for that (games that is)?

I actually dual-boot Win7 and XP. It works pretty well. I had to use XP to run Grim Fandango but so far I've got everything else to work on Win7. I haven't actually tried I'76 yet though.

As I suspected, it installs just fine, but won't run. Doesn't seem to use Glide (I lost all documentation years ago, all I have is the CD).

Windows 7 x64

i82 working fine, some tweaking required some dll's that I dug up on some old cd's were required. and deletion of aclayers.dll but other than that all running perfect.

search your windows folder for a file called aclayers.dll and delete it or if you don't wish to delete it, Rename it.

Evan managed a game of online without much hassle.

Azz [GUN]

This.

I was soooo disappointed. I'76 was my favorite game at the time. What a huge let down.

Now that I got I'76 working I can once again annoy the hell out of my wife by blowing up the school bus over and over so the driver can scream, "Oh god! The children are burning!!!"

I have Interstate '82, bought it near release day, and boy it sucks.

No HUD, no realistic controls - cars handle totally arcadey.

Crappy physics. You can get out of the car and grab a new one - but that totally destroys your immersion and attachment to the car you drive.

But the worst of the wost is the story. Absolute utter bullshit with the most ridiculous final battle and ending.

The truth is that Interstate 82 ran over it's development time and got pushed out the door. They didn't listen to the developers, they didn't listen to the play testers, and they destroyed a game that would have been fantastic. This pretty much killed the franchise.

The poem found on the last page of the game manual spells out what really happened.

It's never too late for them to rip
Into the fruit of our labor.

Their ink tipped claws tear and shred
Leaving the juiciest of juices

To desiccate amid the dust and spilled oil of the
Cold concrete garage floor.

They do it in the name of profit.

Each hiding behind the others carving into the
Most succulent with the casual ease of

Seasoned smiling surgeons without the vaguest taste
for the fruit they cut.

Interstate '76 is a great game with a great story......that made
Interstate '82 even worse by comparison. I think that I only played
through about half way before I quit the game and uninstalled it for good.

Even though I have only known Interstate '82 from the You Tube videos of its gameplay and cinemattics, from playing the demo, and from a advertisement for it in a PC game magazine, I don't find the concept too terrible. Yes, i liked the combat/driving/armor system of the first game better. I liked the idea, though, of I'82 deriving influences from Miami Vice and other 1980s crime shows. I also liked the idea of having all Taurus and Groove undergoing an existential crisis after the end of the '70s, and having to cope with the brutality and empitness of the '80s. It was surprising to me that Activision used a few cut Devo songs for the soundtack, but it seemed appropriate for this particular story they were tryin to tell, because Taurus and Groove pretty much were devolving, since it was no longer cool to be groovy and swingy in the new decade (kind of like what happened to Disco performers after everyone said that Disco sucked).

On the other hand, the more I learn about the plot, the more it does seem ridiculous (like having a villain who sounds like Christopher Walken, and dressed like someone from Sgt, Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band). Since the game is set only three years after the '70s ended, I don't think it was necessary for Activision to do away with the Funk-styled soundtrack. I mean, Magnum P.I. was done in the '80s, and it had a very 1970s styled theme song, so why couldn't Interstate '82's soundtrack still remain Funky?

I also think there was a lot of wasted potential for the new gameplay element of getting out of the car. It would have been really cool if, once out of the car, the player could attempt to hide in the alleyways, behind trees, rocks, canyons, and be able to snipe at the car, while still out of sight of their radar (depending on how well you could hide). Another cool idea would be to interact with other civilians, and to be able to enter the buildings and find civilians hanging out in them. There could even be a few foot-walking missions, inside and outside, to add to the interactivity.

On the whole, they sould have kept the original armor system, physics system, and the first perspective mode as well. If I wanted to remake it, I would have opted to do it in an engine similar to the original tesselation engine for i'76, and kept all the original gameplay elements, while perhaps retaining the plot of '82. Either that, or we may need to find somebody today to do an Interstate '77, Interstate '78, or Interstate '79.

I played only the '82 with my cousin when I was a kid. We had fun and had no idea there was a game before that. Still would prefer to play the second one because of slightly better graphics. After reading all of this bashing I might try '76 instead and try to handle the graphics =P