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For the 1972 film, see Continental Circus (film).

Continental Circus
Developer(s)	Taito
Publisher(s)	Taito
Designer(s)	Unknown
Release date(s)	1987
Genre(s)	Racing game
Mode(s)	1 player
Platform(s)	Arcade
Input	Steering Wheel ; Shifter (low/high) ; pedal
Arcade cabinet	Upright or Sit-Down
Arcade display	Raster, standard resolution 256 x 224 (Horizontal) Colors 256

Continental Circus is an arcade racing game created and manufactured by Taito in 1987. It was then republished in 1989 along with a home version of the game, which was available on various platforms including the Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, MSX and ZX Spectrum.

The arcade version of this game comes in both upright or sit-down models; some sit-down models may feature shutter-type 3-D glasses hanging above the player's head. The home conversions of Continental Circus lack the full-on 3D and special glasses of the arcade version, but retain the essential gameplay structure.

The in-game vehicle is the 1987 Camel-sponsored Honda/Lotus 99T Formula 1 car as driven by Ayrton Senna and Satoru Nakajima. Sponsor names such as "Camel," "DeLonghi" are misspelled to prevent copyright infringement under Japanese law.

There are exactly 8 races in Continental Circus, from Brazil to Japan. The first of which is in Brazil and features 100 cars, and requires the player to finish in the top 80 in order to qualify for next race. As the player works through the 8 races, the size of the field steadily decreases, but so does the worst acceptable finishing position to qualify. The car has high and low gears, and is susceptible to damage from contact with another car.

Contents 1 Racing Circuits 2 Racing Hazards 3 Sound/Music 4 Japanese to English Translation 5 Port 6 External links

The 8 races occur on courses which were used in the 1966-1987 timeframe. They are as follows...

Round	Race	Location	Qualifying Position
NO. 1 BRAZIL	Brazilian Grand Prix	Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet	Qualifying Position - 80th Place
NO. 2 U.S.A.	United States Grand Prix East	Watkins Glen International	Qualifying Position - 60th Place
NO. 3 FRANCE	French Grand Prix	Dijon-Prenois	Qualifying Position - 50th Place
NO. 4 MONACO	Monaco Grand Prix	Circuit de Monaco	Qualifying Position - 40th Place
NO. 5 GERMANY	West German Grand Prix	Hockenheimring	Qualifying Position - 30th Place
NO. 6 SPAIN	Spanish Grand Prix	Circuito Permanente Del Jarama	Qualifying Position - 20th Place
NO. 7 MEXICO	Mexican Grand Prix	United States Grand Prix West (Located in Southern California)	Qualifying Position - 10th Place
NO. 8 JAPAN	Japanese Grand Prix	Suzuka Circuit	Qualifying Position - 3rd Place

Like in real racing, The car is susceptible to damage from contact with another car. Once a player hits a car or a piece of the trackside scenery, they will be called into the pits. If they let the car smoke too long, it will catch fire, and the message "IMPENDING EXPLOSION" will appear. Either way, if they fail to make it back, or hit another car, then they will crash, and or explode, costing several seconds.

Also, if the car reaches speeds in excess of 380kph, the speedometer will turn yellow as a warning to the player to let them know the car is going way too fast. If the car hits another car from behind, the collision will send the car into a devastating cartwheel until it explodes, costing several seconds.

In the same light, going too fast through a turn will cause the car to lose grip on the road. If the car loses grip, it will spin out of control. There's a low chance of a wreck happening, but this will definently take several seconds off the clock. Also, from time to time, a thunderstorm will occur, causing the track to become wet, and causing the car to lose traction. In that case, the message "CHANGE TIRES" will appear, and the player must immediately get into the pits to change to wet-tires. If the storm dies down, the road will be covered in puddles. This may not pose a threat, but there's still the risk of wiping out.

Continental Circus did not offer much on music like most arcade racers do, but instead offered intro/outro music for each race in the vein of Pole Position and Pole Position II. Afterwards, the screen cuts to the start line of the race course, and an announcer comes on with the famous message, "Gentlemen, start your engines! 30 seconds for the start!"

Afterwards, the gameplay would only feature sound effects, unless the player has to pit in for one of the above reasons. Then, we can hear the pit crew at work, followed by one member shouting "Let's Go! Go! Go!"

It should have been called "Continental Circuit", but a misunderstanding between the US designers and the Japanese programmers led to the incorrect name "circus". On some fan-made websites, "Continental Circus" suffers from what is referred to as "Donkey Kong Syndrome" (though Donkey Kong is not exactly a case of mistranslation, see its article for more details).

Some also believe that the decision to call the game "Continental Circus" was intentional, as the traveling F1 teams, cars, drivers as well as the spectacles of Formula 1 are sometimes referred to as the "F1 Circus" and there were a series of games entitled that by Human Entertainment.

In 2005, Continental Circus was released for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and the PC as part of Taito Legends.

• Continental Circus at World of Spectrum