Continental Circus

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. Its arcade pre-orders surpassed Taito's previous hit Operation Wolf (1987). In Japan, Game Machine listed Continental Circus on their April 15, 1988 issue as being the third most-successful upright arcade unit of the month. In the United Kingdom, it reached number-two on the monthly Coinslot dedicated arcade game chart in 1988, behind Street Fighter.

The January 1989 issue of Sinclair User gave it the award for 1988 "Cock-Up of the Year" because of the title Continental Circus appearing to spell "circuit" incorrectly.