Ace Driver Victory Lap will be released on October 22, giving the 1995 Namco arcade racer its first home version. Video Games Chronicle reports that retro specialist Hamster Corporation is putting the game out as part of both its Arcade Archives and Arcade Archives 2 lines, and counts it as the twelfth release in the Japanese publisher's run through Namco's early 1990s polygonal arcade output.
That run covers three Namco arcade boards: System 22, the board on which the company moved to polygonal graphics, the more powerful Super System 22, and the PlayStation-based System 11.
Victory Lap is the sequel to Ace Driver, which arrived in arcades in 1994, ten months after Ridge Racer, and came to Arcade Archives in May. Per VGC, the sequel adds two more circuits and a Championship mode in which players race all three courses in sequence.
What the Arcade Archives versions include
Every Arcade Archives release carries an Original Mode, a High Score Mode in which play continues until Game Over, and a Caravan Mode scored within a fixed time limit. The Arcade Archives 2 versions add a Time Attack Mode for completing the full game as quickly as possible, along with VRR support, which Hamster says makes for a "more accurate reproduction of the original arcade game's experience."
Eleven of Namco's polygonal arcade games are already available through the series. From System 22 and Super System 22 there are Ridge Racer, Air Combat 22, Aqua Jet, Tokyo Wars, Rave Racer, Cyber Commando, Ace Driver, Armadillo Racing and Cyber Cycles; from System 11 there are Tekken and Xevious 3D/G.
- Release date: October 22
- Publisher: Hamster Corporation
- Lines: Arcade Archives and Arcade Archives 2
- Original arcade release: 1995, as the sequel to 1994's Ace Driver
