Lost In Translation/Continental Circus

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This page is a stub for arcade games that are part of the Lost In Translation series using information based on MAME (version 0.113u2).
For an example of preferred content and layout please refer to Out Run or The Ninja Warriors.


Continental Circus
No screen shot.
Continental Circus control panel.
Manufacturer Taito Corporation Japan
Released 1987
Control
Method
2-way Joystick
Analog joystick
8 Button(s)
Main CPU (2x) 68000 (@ 12.000 MHz)
68000 (@ 12.000 MHz)
Sound CPU Stereo
YM2610 (@ 8.000 MHz)
Video
Details
Raster (Horizontal)
320 x 224 pixels
60.00 Hz
4,096 Palette colours
Screens 1
ROM Info 19 ROMs
5,906,944 bytes (5.63 MiB)
MAME ID contcirc · contcrcu · contcrua

About The Game

Continental Circus is Formula One racing themed, arcade video game in which the player races over a number of International Grand Prix circuits, trying to complete each lap before the time limit expires. Continental Circus features Pit-stops and dynamic weather; the latter in the form of rain.

If the player's car is hit by either a rival car or strikes a trackside barrier, the car will be damaged and begin to smoke. The player must 'pit' at the earliest opportunity to get the car repaired, otherwise the fire will spread and the car will eventually explode. Should the player's car have a second collision before the Pit-stop is reached, the car to explode, wasting precious time before a replacement car appears.

Contintal Circus' Grand Prix tracks are as follows :

  • BRAZIL / Brazil GP - Qualified Rank 80
  • AMERICA / U.S.A GP - Qualified Rank 60
  • FRANCE / French GP - Qualified Rank 50
  • MONACO / Monaco GP - Qualified Rank 40
  • GERMANY / Germany GP - Qualified Rank 30
  • SPAIN / Spain GP - Qualified Rank 20
  • MEXICO / Mexico GP - Qualified Rank 10
  • JAPAN / Japan GP - Qualified Rank 3

Trivia

Like Nintendo's 1981 classic, "Donkey Kong", Continental Circus was the victim of a mistake during the translation from Japanese to English. The game was orginally to be called 'Continental Circuits'. All the artwork on the US games was later corrected to say 'Continental Circuit' but the original Taito PCBs are clearly labeled with the epithet, 'Circus'. Note : F1 is often called the 'F1 circus' because it is like a big circus that travels to different cities across different continents.

Continental Circus was unique at the time in that certain cabinets came supplied with a '3D visor', through which the player viewed the action. The visor, similar in outward appearance to the one used in Atari's "Battlezone", produced a simple but effective 3D effect. This effect could be disabled by the arcade operator via the dip switch settings.

This game was released outside US 2 years later (in 1989).

The race car driven by the player is the 1987 Camel-sponsored Honda/Lotus 99T Formula 1 car as driven by Ayrton Senna (1960-1994) and Satoru Nakajima. Sponsor names such as 'Camel' and 'DeLonghi' are misspelled deliberatly to prevent copyright infringement under Japanese law.

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Kyukyoku Tiger : G.S.M. Taito 2 - D28B0008) on 21/11/1988.

Tips and tricks

  • Fast Start : Hold Speed Low+Accelerator, tires will smoke.

Staff

Produce
Junji Yarita
Yoshimitsu Kasahra
Software
Tohru Sugawara
Hidenori Sasatani
Kenzo Nomura
Eiichi Sato
Character
Junji Yarita
Yoshimitsu Kasahara
Seiji Kawakami
Shinobu Iwabuchi
Toshiyuki Nishimura
Hardware
Seigo Sakamoto
Masahiro Yamaguchi
Takashi Ohhara
Mechanic
Akira Takahashi
Itsuji Yamada
Tohru Hirata
Yukihiro Akiyama
Masaharu Hori
Design
Maoko Yoshida
Shibonu Sekiguchi
Kazuo Nakagawa
Takeo Shiraishi
Atsushi Iwaoka

Sound

All Direction & Music Arranged
Mar. (Ztt)
Sub Direction
Yack (Ztt)
Software
Naoto Yagishita
Hisayoshi Ogura
Shiro Imaoka
Kazuyuki Ohnui
Hardware
Eikichi Takahashi
Tsukasa Nakamura
Electric
Fumio Takeda
Satoru Shimomura
Masatoki Sasaki

Cabinet and Artwork

Ports

Consoles
Sony PlayStation 2 (2005, "Taito Legends") (US & Europe)
Microsoft XBOX (2005, "Taito Legends") (US & Europe)
Sony PlayStation 2 (2007, "Taito Memories II Vol. 1") (Japan only)
Computers
Box art for the Virgin Games port of Continental Circus.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1989)
Amstrad CPC (1989)
Atari ST (1989)
Commodore C64 (1989)
Commodore Amiga ("Continental Circus, 1989, Virgin Mastertronic)
PC [MS Windows] (2005, "Taito Legends") (US & Europe)


Soundtrack Releases

Album Name Catalogue No. Released Publisher Comments
Kyukyoku Tiger -G.S.M. Taito 2- D28B-0008[1] 1988-11-21 Pony Canyon, Inc. CD version.
Ultimate Tiger -G.S.M. Taito 2- 25P5-0008[2] 1988-11-21 Pony Canyon, Inc. Cassette version.

External Links

References

The contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The sources used include MAME (version 0.113u2) and history.dat (revision 1.28 - 2008-10-18).
Please see http://www.arcade-history.com for credits.