Handle Champ: this 1998 game is strange, "increasingly deranged", and utterly unique

If we’re honest, this one’s really stretching the definition of a driving game. Yes, the two player Handle Champ arcade cabinet features a pair of steering wheels and accelerator pedals, but the resemblance ends there.

You see, this is a game from the Japanese series known as a ‘Bishi Bashi’, which roughly translates to ‘vigorously’ or ‘energetically’. It’s essentially a sequence of rapid fire minigames that will have you sawing at the wheel and stomping the accelerator pedal like a rally driver who’s late for the birth of their first child.

The games themselves begin with a loose automotive theme, but become increasingly deranged as the 17 rounds wear on. Early minigames include car bowling with a Testarossa and drag racing a cola-powered muscle car, both of which seem reasonable, but before long you’re using the steering wheel to manoeuvre a lumbering elephant or aim a cannon to fire scantily clad musclemen onto a moving platform. If you’ve been trying fruitlessly to persuade your significant other that video games should be taken seriously as an art form, this is not the game to show them.

The main thing Handle Champ demonstrates is that while a steering wheel and pedals are the perfect means by which to control an automobile, that combination is positively useless for everything else. Handle Champ is phenomenally difficult and if you’re a solo player pitting yourself against the game’s exacting standards, you’ll be chewing through coins like popcorn. As a result, the game is best played with a second player, competing for bragging rights rather than outright high scores.

So, while Handle Champ isn’t strictly a driving game, we reckon it’s earned its spot. There’s no denying it’s an original; completely unique and never imitated since. But then so is Timmy Mallett. Make of that what you will.