Available on:
Super Nintendo (eBay - £5-10 used)

After the release of the stunning physics-platformer Trials HD last week, Level Up was inclined to check out another side-scrolling bike game from yesteryear. Unirally, released for the SNES in 1994, was a racer involving - that's right - unicycles around a stunt track. It was bizarre and utterly brilliant.

However, it should be noted that Trials HD is nothing like Unirally (or Uniracers as it was known outside of Europe). This was a game revolving around high speeds and pulling off stunts at exactly the right moment to give you the best speed boost possible. Although stunts were key to winning races, they weren't demanding to pull off: they were a case of holding a shoulder button or tapping a face button, and ensuring you touch down wheel first to get the boost. That's not to say it wasn't challenging: other coloured unicycles were also present on the track, where a single slip-up would cost you places in an instant, and dedicated stunt courses with high jumps and half pipes would require demanding scores for the highest medals.

The visual style and feel of the game was also completely different to Trials: it was vibrant, bold and flooded with bright colours, with the tracks consisting of linear streaks of piping that winded, looped and twisted around the screen. The music was adrenaline-filled and fast-paced, and the game dripped with cool and defined character. Unicycles would turn their saddle towards the screen as if to look at the pack, phrases like "Dude" and "Awesome" (basically anything from the early '90s) would fill the screen with every completed stunt, and the game would actually reject names for your unicycle if it thought they weren't 'cool' enough.

The game also marks an interesting time for perhaps the biggest developer in the world, Rockstar North. Breaking away from popular 16-bit publisher Psygnosis, DMA Design created Unirally as a console exclusive for the Super Nintendo, which began a rather tenuous relationship with the hardware giant. Nintendo later licensed it to create Body Harvest, only to hand Midway the rights later on. A critical success, it's free-roaming mechanics were later used in a little-known game called Grand Theft Auto, and the rest is history.

It's a game that sadly hasn't been re-released since, a situation which can hopefully be rectified now that Nintendo and Rockstar North have a renewed relationship. Its gameplay, speed and character makes Unirally incredibly unique even now, and certainly provides a lot of fun if you can spare a tenner on eBay. Although we probably won't forgive it for turning down 'Robocop' as a unicycle name...

Do you have any fond memories of Unirally? Add a comment in the space below!