Checkered Flag is a “formula-style” racing game, initially released by Atari Corporation for the Atari Lynx in 1991.

It features 18 different tracks; male and female drivers; car colour customization; auto or manual transmission; up to eight opponent “drone” cars; three play modes (practise, single heat, or tournament), and – incredibly – a multiplayer mode that supports up to six simultaneous players via the Lynx‘s daisy-chaining ComLynx cable. All players must have a copy of the game, though.

Amazingly, Checkered Flag is still available to buy on Steam (at the time of writing), although the asking price is too high, IMHO. Also: the critic reviews quoted on Steam are from the Nineties, and are wildly over-generous. So much so, that you’d have to ask how much Atari paid for those review scores/quotes… Checkered Flag is pretty good, but it’s certainly not as good as IGN and GamePro make out!

The biggest problem with the game is that – as is often the case in “formula” style racing games – any contact with opponent cars will cause you to spin out, and then getting back into the race is a real chore (and only really possible if you have a lap or two to go). This kind of unforgiving gameplay left me wondering how much better the game might have been if it had featured cars that were a bit more forgiving when contact with other racers is made.

Checkered Flag was remade for the Atari Jaguar (by Rebellion Software) in 1994, and that is arguably the better version to play nowadays.

More: Checkered Flag on Wikipedia
Steam: Checkered Flag on Steam