Hang-On

Hang-On (ハングオン Hangu On) is a Super Scaler arcade racing game developed by Sega-AM2 and manufactured by Sega in 1985. The game was conceived by Yu Suzuki, who envisioned the game's revolutionary fully interactive, motion-controlled cabinet that uses body movement. Hang-On was an immediate worldwide critical and commercial success and would help Sega to become a dominant force in the Arcade industry. Many ports for home computers and consoles would be released in the following years - a direct sequel, Super Hang On, would be released in 1987.

Gameplay
Hang-On was the first game to use Super Scaler technology which allows for a psuedo-3D effect, allowing various objects to seem close to or further away from the player whilst also maintaining a high frame rate. The player must follow the course effectively without crashing into objects on the roadside and avoiding other drivers on the course. There is a time limit given to reach the checkpoint and enter a new stage, if it is missed the game will end, the longer a player remains on the course the more their score will increase.

Development
Hang-On's origins can be traced back to when, early in his time at SEGA, Yu Suzuki was presented with a prototype pair of handlebars called the "torsion bar" and was tasked with finding a way to use the hardware in a game, which he struggled with - it ended up proving too difficult. After Suzuki's first game at SEGA, Champion Boxing, he decided to take another stab at the torsion bar concept. He was a fan of fast cars and motorcycles, so he wanted to build a game around them. However, the usual kind of arcade controls - such as pushing buttons or moving an arcade stick - didn't provide the immersion he was looking for, so he put together a concept for an arcade cabinet designed to be rode on like an actual motorcycle.

Suzuki wanted his game to be as realistic as possible. Although he was a larger fan of off-road bikes used in motocross and Enduro racing, market research at SEGA's arcade division proved on-road GP bike racing to be more popular, and thus more likely to sell. While the available technology at SEGA didn't provide the true 3D enviroments he wanted, Suzuki and his team came up with a new type of engine that would feed several future arcade boards - that being "Super Scaler" technology. Building off of the VCO Object system used in the earlier SEGA arcade game Zoom 909, this system used sprite scaling to give the game a pseudo-3D look and feel and create a larger sense of immersion.

Hang-On is also notable for its soundtrack, composed by prolific SEGA musician Hiroshi Kawaguchi. Kawaguchi was originally hired as a programmer at SEGA, having worked on the SG-1000 title Girl's Garden. He got Suzuki's attention when the latter heard he had played in a band. Looking for someone to score his project, he invited Kawaguchi to compose the music for Hang-On, and asked him for songs that sounded like something a band would play. Kawaguchi came up with four songs, most notable among them being the main theme, "Theme of Love".

The aforementioned concept for an immersive motorcycle-shaped deluxe cabinet wound up becoming the game's most defining aspect, and kickstarting a long legacy of SEGA arcade games with special cabinets designed to feel as immersive as possible - dubbed "taikan" cabinets. Suzuki still had a few features he'd wished to include in the game but couldn't - for example, he wanted the cabinet to have the dimensions of an actual GP500 motorcycle, but this gave it too large a footprint in the arcades, so it was slimmed down to be easier to ride. Suzuki also wanted to include a gyroscope to simulate accelerating and decelerating a motorcycle at high speeds, but it was deemed cost-prohibitive. In addition, when it was first presented in Japan, the deluxe cabinet was criticized as being inappropriate for Japanese culture. Some said Japanese people were too shy to want to straddle a bike in front of everyone else, and some pointed out that it could be unsuitable for people in miniskirts. However, once the game finally came out, it proved to be a smash hit that changed SEGA's image forever and left a large mark on their legacy.