Fearful freebie: Keith Courage in Alpha Zones & Victory Run | Turbo Works 02

When NEC sat down and looked over the dozens of PC Engine games available in Japan by summer of 1989 to determine which one they should include as the American system's free pack-in title, somehow, they landed on Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. The game looks pretty decent for its time, with vivid colors and large, solid, detailed sprites, but from there it gets a bit shaky. Still, you have to hand it to NEC: they got into the trend of not-quite-localizing Japanese properties for American straightaway. Aarzak would be proud. But really, putting an anemic piece of software like Keith Courage in the TG16 box was ultimately just a clever ploy to make you—yes, you!—run out and buy other, better games as quickly as possible. Like Victory Run. Sure, it's just a naked Out Run clone. But it was also the best Out Run-like game available on consoles in 1989. And so challenging that, unlike Keith Courage, players needed to put some real effort into mastering it. Please help support this series via Patreon (patreon.com/gamespite) or by picking up the related books via Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/books) TurboGrafx-16 footage captured in RGB from MiSTer FPGA. Upscaled via RetroTink 4K. Special thanks to Steve Lin and MiSTer Add-Ons.