Super Hang-On, Power Drift, Harley Davidson And SmashTV Reviewed.

How can a developer create one of the best Amiga ports ever, yet also deliver one of the worst in the very same year, under the same IP owner, SEGA?

It’s no secret that many of the earliest Amiga games were little more than Atari ST ports. The ST lacked custom chipsets for graphics and audio, as well as DMA, but for economic reasons, most publishers chose this route anyway.

The result was a wave of poor conversions, with OutRun being one of the most infamous examples — a game we all knew could have been so much better on the Amiga.

What makes this especially ironic is that, just around the corner, the same publisher, and remarkably the same IP owner, would release one of the best drive-’em-up games on the Amiga, proving beyond doubt what the machine was truly capable of.

Super Hang-On From Electric Dreams ( Activision)…

Super Hang-On on the Amiga was genuinely super. Coded by ZZKJ, it took the Amiga world by storm as a near-perfect port of the SEGA arcade cabinet. Everything felt right — the speed, the visuals, the sound — and, honestly, it was all there.

“The Best Racing Game You’ve Ever Played,” The Box Boldly Claimed — And For Once, It Was Actually True…

Well… except for one feature — the very thing that made most players crash thanks to the sheer sound, rush, and immersion. Can you guess what it was?

When I first heard this from the developers, I nearly exploded 🤣 The Nitro (Turbo) feature didn’t actually do anything in terms of speed. It was purely a sound trick. You didn’t go faster at all — it just felt like you did. All it really accomplished was stressing the player into pushing harder… and crashing more often 🤭

In-game Logo And A Picture From One Of The Earlier Tracks.

The game featured superb graphics, with a sense of speed that remained unmatched for years. The sound effects and music were so well executed that when I finally encountered the arcade cabinet later that year, my reaction was simply meh. The Amiga — or Miggy — version felt arcade-perfect, and at the time, I even thought it was the better game to play.

Some Of The Stuff In The Box…

The typical cassette and floppy holder of the time is, of course, included in the box, along with a few flyers for other Activision games, such as Time Scanner, which I haven’t included here.

The Verdict…

This one’s an easy call: the best motorcycle game on the Amiga for years — at least until No Second Prize arrived, and later surpassed again (in my opinion) by Road Rash.

ZZKJ’s coding was so far ahead of its time that expectations for his next projects went through the roof. After this, everyone assumed whatever he touched next would be nothing short of spectacular.

Same Developer, But Instant Crash And Burn…

Power Drift was indeed the culprit. The same coder, largely the same team — and yet the result couldn’t have been more different. While the game is probably technically competent as an ST port, it is, frankly, an unplayable shitstorm on the Amiga.I still have no real idea what went wrong, but if I were to guess, Activision likely pushed the team to finish it in record time, just to get it out while the arcade machines were still hot. The end result feels rushed, compromised, and completely at odds with what the same people had proven they were capable of only months earlier.

The pictures Looked Fine…

On the surface, it looked pretty decent — the box art was solid, and magazine previews were promising. Publications like Amiga Format and The Games Machine even went as far as awarding scores as high as 9 out of 10. Honestly, they cannot have played the Amiga version.

Other magazines were far less generous, with scores ranging anywhere from 2 out of 10 to 7 out of 10 — and even then, I still question whether the Amiga version was actually tested properly.

What makes this even stranger is that the Power Drift version on the Commodore 64 played like an absolute dream, which only highlights how badly things went wrong on the Amiga.

I know I bought this game at launch. I know I owned the B5 box. I just can’t find it anymore — and when you’re staring down a couple of thousand boxes, that kind of archaeological dig takes both time and energy 😅

The Verdict…

This game is so bad that there are practically no screenshots of it online. The arcade machine itself wasn’t exactly great either — but it did have that fantastic sit-down cabinet with insane rumble and physical feedback. That spectacle carried the experience. Strip that away, and even if the Amiga version had been better, it would still have been pretty awful.

The engine driving the Amiga version of Power Drift is wildly uncontrollable, the graphics look odd and awkward in motion, and after five races, you’ll never want to touch it again. Ever. Well… unless you’re making a review almost 40 years later 😈.

The Road To Sturgis, The First Non-Arcade Port By ZZKJ…

I’ll never forget the first day I played it. It genuinely felt real — like riding a heavy Harley, with gorgeous graphics and powerful sound, heading out on a long road trip toward Sturgis.

It felt completely original, unlike anything I had seen or played before. At the time, Road to Sturgis didn’t just stand out — it felt like something entirely new.

Great looking, Good Sound And Fun To Play…

The version my friend and I played — R.I.P. Lucasz — was a pirated copy I had borrowed from a guy who was heading off on vacation. All he said was, “Play this game right away.”

I quickly understood why. Dodging traffic, picking up sexy women hitchhiking and dropping them off a little further down the road — it all felt incredibly alive. The game even featured multiple pit stops (much like Test Drive), which only added to the sense of realism.

It felt real in a way few games ever had before. And it wasn’t easy either — it took me months, if not years, to finally beat it.

The Box Looks Pretty Weird…

The box design is so far outside the norm that I honestly suspect it’s one of the reasons the game is so rare today. My copy is still sealed, and to be completely honest, I have no idea what’s actually inside.

And let’s be clear — that front cover artwork does not look like a Harley rider. At all.

In fact, I genuinely think this might be one of the worst front covers on the Amiga. Well… maybe not if we also count Pinball Hazard — a game so rare that I’ve started to wonder if it even exists in more than a single boxed copy.

—Story About How I Acquired This Game — and a Friend for Life.

Here’s a bit of personal history — I hope you don’t mind.

I searched for the original game for nearly 30 years before finally finding a sealed, new-in-box copy at a web shop that was closing down for good. I knew the game was extremely rare, and there was no price listed. I decided to ask about it, along with a few other titles.

The reply stunned me: $20.

I pointed out that this was a very rare game, and that prices on QXL and sold listings on eBay were nearly ten times higher. He simply replied, “You’ve already bought games for almost $300, and I know this will go to a good home. You’re a good guy.”

What neither of us knew at the time was that I would end up buying almost 50 games from him over the following months. I also sent several fellow collectors his way, and within 6–7 months, he managed to sell over 400 sealed, NIB games.

We still keep in touch regularly on Messenger to this day.

The Verdict…

A fun, challenging, and lengthy game with excellent presentation — original, well-crafted, and clearly made with care by the development team. To me, this is more than just a gem. It’s tied to two very strong memories from my youth, which naturally means I probably rank it higher than some others would.

That said, when I checked modern reviews, scores range anywhere from 7/10 to 9/10, so maybe I’m not that biased after all.

Haven’t tried Harley-Davidson: Road To Sturgis yet? You really should.

Smash TV, The Arcade Smash Hit…

This time around, ZZKJ was working on a title developed and published by Acclaim Entertainment and Ocean Software. He was still part of Probe Software at the time, although during the course of the project, several team members would eventually move over to Acclaim.

Smash T.V. was a massive hit in the arcades, and once Ocean secured the rights, they set out to find the very best porting team available.

The hype surrounding the Amiga version was intense. Magazines were full of glowing previews, throwing around phrases like “arcade perfect” long before release.

I ended up buying the game a few months after launch — not by choice, but simply because I couldn’t find a pirated copy anywhere ( I used to try the game before buying). By then, I’d already read a fair number of reviews, and they were all over the place, with scores ranging from the low 60s to the high 80s.

Good-looking, great to play, and very much in the spirit of Robotron.. 

I instantly loved this one. Opening the box only made it better, as inside I found what was quite possibly one of the largest posters I’d ever seen packed with a game.

When I noticed there was only one floppy disk in the box, I actually wondered if there had been a production error. But no — the entire game was packed onto a single disk.

Smash T.V. also featured a two-player mode, which meant I had to call a friend over a few days later. And good thing I did — the game becomes hysterically difficult. But together with my good friend Lukasz, we eventually managed to beat it… after what must have been close to 100 attempts.

The Verdict…

In my opinion, Smash T.V. isn’t ZZKJ’s very best work — but it’s still a game I truly loved. The gameplay mechanics are rock solid, heavily Robotron-inspired, and the two-player support adds a huge amount of value. Most impressive of all is how the game manages to stay fun after countless hours and repeated attempts — something that’s honestly hard to explain.

When you look at the sheer amount of terrible arcade ports released that year, and especially the year after, Smash T.V. really stands out.

Under slightly different circumstances, it could very well have been considered one of the absolute best. But then Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II arrived and completely changed the conversation.

The double-barrel screenshots are taken from Hall of Light, while the rest are from my own collection.

PS: I’m fully aware that ZZKJ also handled the Amiga port of Super Monaco GP, another SEGA arcade title. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to locate that box in my collection yet. If and when I do, I’ll update this post — but until then, this one stands at a solid 7/10.

Digging through ~1,800 B5-sized boxes for the first release of Power Drift was brutal—especially when you know it has to be there somewhere. After 90 minutes your eyes stop registering cover art, your back hates you, and every box starts looking like the last one. Nightmare fuel for collectors…

If and when I find them, I will then update the Blog ofcourse.