Banpresto's Wacky Races reappears on location test in Japan

Chalk this up to the big surprise of the month (so far) but way back in 2007 a new kart-style racing game appeared on location test at the Trocadero in London called Wacky Races. The

Wacky Races as last seen at ASI 2008

game was based upon an older Hanna-Barbara. cartoon(now being distributed under Warner Bros.) of the same name and had a slot-machine style lever on it that dealt with power-ups(that lever was removed on US cabinets). I got a chance to play this game back at ASI2008 but after that show the game completely went off the radar for some reason, even though it was pretty much finished. I don’t know if it was just available in Europe or if it was available in very limited quantities in the US – either way I had forgotten about the game until today. Strangely enough it has reappeared on a location test in Japan, once again under the Banpresto logo and once again with the lever seen on the European versions of the game. I wonder why this game is making a comeback two and half years after it’s initial reveal and whether or not they have made any improvements to it while it’s been off-the-radar.

Small Room Aries has a little more info on the Japanese location test for this game, including some location test info for Konami’s new Pop N’ Music Tune Street game.

Here’s the location test video that AH editor Twisted Supreme grabbed from the game back in 2007: