is a

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific goa ...

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

, which had been released by

Namco was a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Na ...

in 1989 only in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

; it runs on

Namco System 2 Namco was a video game developer and publisher, originally from Japan. Bandai Namco Entertainment is the successor to Namco and continues manufacturing and distributing video games worldwide. For Namco games released following the 2006 merger w ...

hardware, and allows up to four players to play simultaneously, when four cabinets are linked together (much like Namco's own '' Final Lap'', which was released two years earlier) they can allow up to eight players to play simultaneously, when four two-player cabinets are linked together.

Gameplay

Each player must take control of a colour-coded car (red for 1P, green for 2P, blue for 3P and yellow for 4P) which are competing in an off-road race; they are given a preset amount of time in which to complete each of the track's six sections and for each section of the track that is successfully completed, the players' time gets extended. However, if any one of the players do not manage to successfully complete the current section of the track before their time runs out, the game will like in other Namco multiplayer racing titles (such as the aforementioned ''Final Lap'') instantly be over and the race will continue without them - and between four and seven purple CPU-controlled cars will also start the race with the players, but they may catch up with additional ones in preset positions on the track.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Dirt Fox'' on their August 15, 1989 issue as being the twelfth most-successful upright/cockpit arcade game of the month.

References

1989 video games Arcade video games Arcade-only video games Namco arcade games Japan-exclusive video games Off-road racing video games Top-down racing video games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Shinji Hosoe Multiplayer and single-player video games {{offroad-racing-videogame-stub