The player's car is equipped with a cannon that can be used to destroy enemy vehicles and roadside gun turrets for extra points.

Red (dropped by enemies destroyed from a distance) and green (appearing at specific milestones) globes on the road add small amounts of fuel to the main tank when picked up.

At the end of each rally, the main tank is refilled and fuel is added to the reserve based on the number of points scored in that stage.

Contact with any enemy, projectile, or obstacle other than an oil slick destroys the player's car, removes any power-up in effect, and resets the scoring multiplier to 1.

There is no limit to the number of times that the player's car can be destroyed and replaced; the game only ends when both the main and reserve fuel tanks are exhausted.

A promotional giveaway was accessible on the original arcade version, where players could send in their name and "personalized secret code" after completing rally 50 and receive a free RoadBlasters T-shirt.

The toys were die-cast cars that could be customized with armor, lasers, machine guns, and rocket launchers and jet engines.

[6] In a capsule review of the Atari Lynx version for STart, Clayton Walnum praised the game's massive length and combination of "standard racing with heaps of action."