Continental Circus

Continental Circus, released as Continental Circuit in North America,[1] is a racing simulation arcade game,[9] created and manufactured by Taito in 1987. It was later ported to various home computers in 1989, including the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MSX and ZX Spectrum. It was then released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC as part of Taito Legends.

The arcade version of this game comes in both upright and sit-down models, both of which feature shutter-type 3D glasses hanging above the player's head. According to Computer and Video Games in 1988, it was "the world's first three dimensional racing simulation."[9] The home conversions of Continental Circus lack the full-on 3D and special glasses of the arcade version, or the detailed graphics, but retain the essential gameplay structure.

The in-game vehicle is the 1987 Camel-sponsored Honda/Lotus 99T Formula One car as driven by Ayrton Senna and Satoru Nakajima. Due to licensing reasons, sponsor names such as "Camel" or "DeLonghi" are intentionally misspelled to prevent copyright infringement under Japanese law.

The player must successfully qualify in eight different races to win. At the beginning, the player must take 80th place or better to advance. As the player advances, so does the worst possible position to qualify. If the player fails to meet to qualify or if the timer runs out, the game is over. The player does, however, have the option to continue, but if the player fails to qualify in the final race, the game is automatically over, and the player cannot continue.

The game was commercially successful. It was number-two on the Coinslot dedicated arcade game chart, behind Street Fighter.[10] As a home conversion, it then went to number 2 on the UK sales chart, behind Power Drift.[11]