Old Racing Game: RoadBlasters!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh--that has to be in the top 10 best 15-second loops I've ever heard.

RoadBlasters is a 1987 Atari arcade game, a cousin to the infamous Super Sprint.  Frankly, there's enough parallax-scroller-racer games from this time as it is (OutRun, Chase HQ, Pole Position, Rad Racer) so the gameplay isn't terribly exciting.  But it adds car combat and other funky s*** to make it worth mentioning.

Like a Bau5.

DAYUM, that wheelie on launch is awesome.  So you drive what appears to be a twisted rendition of a red DeLorean time machine from point A to B.  But there's all this crap in the way trying to kill you!  No worries, every time you blow up, you lose a little gas.  Be careful cause the gas is your timer--when it runs out, it's game over (no kidding, right???).  Your gas carries over to the next stage.  You can pick up little green & red balls on the track to get extra fuel.  So basically, don't screw around or you'll lose.

So here are the enemies that want to kill you.  Shoot them with your guns to defeat them.  The yellow Lambos are weaksauce and die in one hit.  Then there's the purple limos that take multiple hits to kill--nice to see the evil corporate CEOs are actually out to kill you rather than play golf and drink exotic vodka.  Then there's your traditional oil slick, turret shooter, all that crap.

What the hell is this???  Motor bikes???  Ripped right out of Super Hang-On???  So you get to kill the poor bikers, that's cruel.  Of course, that was every racing dev's strategy in the arcade era--"Rip off Sega's ideas."

Occasionally, this weird-ass ship will drop a special weapon such as a machine gun or a "time bomb" that causes enemies to freeze in place for a few seconds.

You can play the game like a normal racer or you can shoot up enemies to get points.  Kill stuff to get super multipliers and thus even more points.  Cause of the emphasis on car combat and slightly unorthodox car handling (this car can turn on a dime just like that), it's hard to label this as a racing game.  More like an action racing game.  Who cares, you call it whatever you want.

Another screenshot, this game looks surprisingly colorful and clean for a post-apocalyptic car combat game.  I like that.  I like happy, colorful games.

Surprise--this is really a rally game....like Sega Rally.  If you enter the secret service menu, you can enable passenger commands like "Easy Right Maybe" in a crap digitalized voice.

Believe it or not, this game has 50 levels.  Just like Rad Racer and R.C. Pro-Am, when you beat a level, you move onto the next one.  There's a "level select" in which you can leap ahead to the 4th or 11th stages but that's it.

Man this cabinet was the s***, now you have to play this game.  The thing that stands out to me is the coin slot on the complete opposite side of the screen/steering wheel/motherboard...I don't know why.

When it comes to the best versions, the arcade and Genesis versions are the best.  But there's also worse versions.  Like the NES version (haha, NES sucks) which bears resemblance to Sega's Turbo arcade game:



And then there's the ZX Spectrum version.  Holy cow, I don't think you can get any lower in terms of ANY GAME'S ports than the ZX Spectrum:

Anyway, there's not much else to say.  If you beat Level 50 on the Arcade version, send in your score to Atari Games HQ and you win a free T-shirt.  Atari Games is dead so no more t-shirts have been made.  I have no idea what any of these t-shirts look like or if any of them even exist at all.  This promo offer also existed for S.T.U.N. Runner, another Atari race-to-the-finish-while-shooting-all-sorts-of-crap arcade game.  Print your own damn t-shirts.  Review Score for Genesis/Arcade: 7.0 just for the music.  Peace out.

Turns out there a ton of old 90's games tunes on YouTube (all copyright infringement!) but some are cool like this one which is still ingrained in my memory:



Also be sure to check out R.C. Pro-Am, California Speed, Initial D, Rad Racer, and Super Sprint/Super-Off Road/Indy Heat. 

Motor Bike Crashes Are Terrifying

I thought this was a sad story pertaining to motorsport...:

I didn't hear about this until now.  You thought the Dan Wheldon wreck was the end of it all--well, it's not.  Italian Moto GP driver Marco Simoncelli died in the Malaysian Moto GP on Oct. 23.  He fell off his bike in the second lap and was struck by two other drivers, taking his helmet off as he laid there in the middle of the track.  The wreck also sent another driver flying into the grass although he is hopefully okay.  Simoncelli was unconscious as paramedics took him to the hospital.  He was declared dead hours later.  No idea if he was killed instantly or he was in great pain for some time.

I'm not even going to bother posting pics or videos of this.  Just look at the picture on that site.  At least in the Dan Wheldon wreck, you didn't "see" Wheldon die, he was just caught up in the wreckage.  In this bike wreck, the man was just lying there in the middle of the road.  It's chilling.  Jesus, I can only imagine if you were watching it live on TV.  What's sad is that Simoncelli was only 24 years old.  Dan Wheldon was 33.  He was so young and so good at what he did.  It's one thing for adults to die, but young people...give them a break.

I admit that I don't watch a lot of motorcycle racing.  I'm not that crazy about bikes.  But these guys truly got guts.  At least in a car, you have some sort of roll cage/buffer to absorb the hit when you crash.  But on bikes, you got nothing but your helmet & racing suit to protect you.  Riding so close to the ground too.  And when they fall down, they usually get back on their bike and continue racing.  Insane...

I guess the idea is if you lose control of your bike, in most conditions you won't "fall" to the ground but instead slide/roll on the concrete into the grass or whatever barriers they've constructed.  Yes, that would hurt but it's better than crashing face-first into the pavement.  That doesn't protect you from getting tangled up with your bike or being struck by other drivers.  Bear in mind these bikes go over 200 mph/320 kph and that is scary fast.

So, what am I saying.  So we can go on about NASCAR, Formula 1, Rally Racing, Touring Car, etc.  But some people like bikes--Moto GP, Dirt Bikes, etc.  They share the same passion for racing and that should be commended.  Just drive, baby.

I've hardly mentioned Hang-On (1985) and Super Hang-On (1987).  Yu Suzuki loved riding bikes so that's why he made Hang-On.  The idea of a cabinet that leaned back and forth was awesome.  This game was Suzuki's "break-out" title.  Bear in mind OutRun (1986) was released a year later so if Suzuki hadn't made Hang-On, would we even have OutRun, Virtua Racing, or Daytona USA??  Maybe I should put up a Hang-On picture on the right side of the screen...yeah I'll do it later.  My bad.

Not to detract from Marco's death but now you know why motor bikes are a big deal.  Just say a prayer for Marco's family and for other racers that everyone is safe.  Can't stand drivers dying like this, especially when they are so young.  I promise I'm not going to turn this site into an obituary.  Much better news coming up soon.  Too much stuff to talk about in too little time...

Awesome Scud Race Magazine Article!!!

This I found on Blue Skies Daily.  I had never seen this before.  It's always good to discover new Sega racing material.  But this is extra-special--this is NEXT GENERATION Magazine, the "World's #1 computer and videogame authority," so Sega put on a good show to the entire gaming audience, not just some Sega nerds.  Oh BTW, Scud Race is also known as "Super GT" just in case you didn't know already.

"From the makers of Virtua Fighter 3 comes Super GT, the best auto-racing game of all time."

"Sega's Model 3 arcade technology boasts twin Lockheed Martin R3D/Pro-1000 custom graphics chips, each capable of rendering over 750,000 polygons per second.  Super GT pushes this hardware to the max--and refines the racing genre.  Page 60."

"Are you a psychopath?  Senator Lieberman thinks you might have a problem.  Page 8."

I won't post the rest of the pages (six in total) because I didn't scan them and I don't want to take credit for that.  Again, go to this site to see the other five pages.  If that site goes down in the future (I hope not), I got the pages saved to my computer.  I'm just going to quote important stuff that I read from it.


PAGE 1: "The race is on.  Nobody pushes the envelope as hard and as fast as Sega's AM2 coin-op division.  Led by the incomparable Yu Suzuki, the AM2 division is perhaps most famous for its Virtua Fighter series.  But experienced arcade gamers know that AM2's real strength is in its driving games.  Forget Namco, Sega AM2 is responsible for arcade racing's finest hours: Hang On, OutRun, Virtua Racing, Daytona USA--and now Super GT.  In the world of videogames, Sega AM2's racing pedigree earns it the mantle of gaming's Ferrari.

Based on the same Model 3 technology that powers the 1.5 million polygons-per-second Virtua Fighter 3, Super GT is as near to taking a real Porche (sp?) around a hairpin bend at 120 miles per hour as any civilian is likely to get.

This, truly, is state of the art."

I'm gonna tell you this.  I'M STOKED!!!  I think I've been waiting YEARS for someone (besides me) to eloquently express something as positive and uplifting as this.  I mean, holy cow.  Gaming's Ferrari?  Forget Namco?  Sega AM2 responsible for arcade racing's finest hours?  Lest you forget, this is a magazine for ALL games, not just Sega, so they really went out of their way to write this (and put it on the cover too)!

Oh, and while we're at it, we should  consider adding a Hang-On pic to the side bar over there...I didn't want to put a pic for EVERY game but we've been ignoring that AM2 classic for too long it seems...


PAGE 2: Love this quote:

"AM2 is the best arcade developer in the world, and it's current ambition is to create the definitive driving game."

Oops, don't tell that to Midway!  There's a picture of a much younger & more normal Toshihiro Nagoshi.  Even with the same team from Daytona USA, Nagoshi intended to and eventually made a completely different game. Super GT would be the first game to showcase the Model 3 board.  AM2 had an in-house rivalry with Tetsuya Misuguchi at AM Annex (Sega Rally/Touring Car).  You're right--forget about Namco, forget about Midway, forget about everyone else.  The only way to keep up with a Sega racer is with...another Sega racer.  ~*MIND BLOWN!!!*~


PAGE 3: Super GT car models consists of roughly 3,000 polygons each--three times that of Daytona USA.  Better graphics, Model 3 board is at least three times more powerful than the Model 2 board and was able to utilize Gouraud shading.  Tires are nearly round and the glass are transparent.  Sega programmers were experienced enough to cut out drawing needless geometry, hence speeding up the game.  Here's a quote:

"Toshihiro Nagoshi studied film in school, and his eye for detail has not been wasted at Sega which he describes as 'much more fun than movies.' "

Well, we already know Nagoshi was interested in film beforehand.  So maybe he has more know-how about these games than we think.  A damn shame he's working on this Binary Domain crap...


PAGE 4: Nagoshi said:

"Daytona was based on an American sport.  I wanted to make a game that would be accepted worldwide." 

Regardless, Daytona still has international appeal (played from Japan, US, UK, Brazil, Signapore, etc.) but still, the more diverse appeal of Super GT is greatly welcomed.  Later, Nagoshi went to the Ferrari factory in Modena, Italy.  Somehow, Sega's big budget granted them the license to use big-name cars.  He also said:

"I didn't want Super GT to be a circuit game because they are visually boring.  I wanted to make a game that was visually attractive.  We needed to make some course that would have character and be easily identified by the public--to avoid over-complicating things.  For example, we decided to make a course influenced by the Indiana Jones movies--something that can identified by the player, with relatively simple imagery."

I'm glad he got the colorful environment portion down.  But that's not all for this page!  He knows the basic principle of any game is to make it accessible.  He said: 

"The feeling of actually driving is very strong.  I didn't want to make a difficult racing game.  It may sound strange, but I'm very bad at playing games.  I used to spend a lot of money in arcades, just to see the end-game sequences and I know how bad players can feel if the game is too hard, too early.  So when I came to design Super GT, I tried to make a game that could be enjoyed by beginners."

Gee, I guess this is why Scud Race *ahem* Super GT has been in all of these Chuck E. Cheese's...


PAGE 5: Interesting quote from the article!

"Experienced gamers shouldn't lose out, however, if AM2's previous efforts are anything to go by.  Virtua Fighter was instantly accessible, requiring only a few moves to progress through the initial stages, but weeks of constant playing to master.  Super GT, for all its initial simplicity, will no doubt turn out to be as rich a driving experience as the original Daytona USA, which many regarded as superior to Ridge Racer thanks to its extended learning curve."

Sorry Cruis'n, FnF nubs, you're not off the hook just yet.

Now here we read about Yu Suzuki's involvement with this game from Nagoshi himself:

"When I joined Sega, Yu Suzuki had made some outstanding racing games.  He made the Virtua Fighter series a success, but he still prefers making racing games.  We are different, our ideas and views are different, but I got some advice from Yu Suzuki on the drift handling.  For Daytona, the handling was a bit heavy.  With Super GT, when you turn, the handling becomes steadily heavier, but does so smoothly.  When entering a drift, the tail will slide slowly and you'll feel the power of the engine.  He also recommended that I do some sampling on the Fuji freeway, which I did.  He's very supportive."

Su Suzuki took Nagoshi out for a drift cruise out on Fuji Circuit?  That's boss.  Well, I never really knew Suzuki's involvement from this game, but with him as a mentor (not as a member of the team), Nagoshi could do no wrong.  Didn't know Suzuki liked making racing games THAT much, a damn shame he couldn't have made more during his tenure at Sega.  Now that Suzuki has left, Nagoshi...uh, you get the picture.

Also here, it mentions multiplayer.  This I'm curious about since I really don't know if Super GT is capable of more than 4 players...  Article says something interesting about this:


"At the moment, there are only plans for two-player and four-player link-ups--such is the cost of combining such an advanced cabinet, with the expensive Model 3 board.  The code is there, however, and it would be possible to link eight cabinets, but the cost of such a system would make it a rare sight indeed in all but the major theme parks."

And while the fanfare of this game is stellar, these people have yet to play Daytona 2 which'll come out in the next year.  Mentions that Nagoshi & his team may have begun work on such a game.  Also mentions a possible Saturn port of Super GT (one which we never got).  Let me just end my with the following excerpt:


"With Super GT, the team has rasied the bar once again, stealing a march not only on its in-house peers [talking about AM Annex], but arch rivals Namco, which may find itself in the unevitable position of runner-up in the race for the next generation of driving games."

------------

Reading this, you could only feel enthusiastic for the future.  However, after Daytona 2, the series was dropped on its head.  Then there was Crazy Taxi, OutRun 2, and F-Zero GX (if you care about Nintendo IP's) and then that's it.  Everything else they've made has nothing to do with racing or are incredibly obscure.  Sure there's more like Toshihiro Nagoshi was a film major so now he would probably prefer to make movie-based games (Yakuza, Binary Domain) rather than racing games so that's just plain sad.

I'm also surprised that I didn't see Makoto Osaki around since he appeared in all sorts of Daytona USA 2 media such as in another magazine article and the official guide book.

Please come back, Toshihiro Nagoshi, Yu Suzuki, Makoto Osaki...SAVE US FROM THIS TRAVESTY IN GAMES TODAY.  IT'S NOT TOO LATE!!!  Also, while you're at it, a new Shenmue wouldn't be too bad either...

BTW, Next Generation Magazine ran from January '95 to January '02.  So it really sucks when anything that promotes Sega goes away, what a let-down.

If somehow you find any new Sega racer-related material that I may have missed, post it in a comment and I'll surely notice it (and give you some attribution).  If I already saw it, that's ok; I'm just looking for new stuff...

See tons of personal Scud Race emulator pics here and here.

Yu Suzuki Addendum: We Love Him Anyway

Interesting news; I've made over 365 posts which means I've exceeded one post per day for the first year of my blog (started July 21, 2010) so that is AWESOME, BABY!!

This is a continuation to my Yu Suzuki Steps Down post.  I didn't want to clutter that post any further.  Check out this 11 minute video from 2005.  It's originally in French but has English subtitles.



* Sega was the only place that would hire him...wow, that's sad...like the Tom Brady story, no one loves me but I'll prove the haters wrong!!

* Hang-On (1985) was the first game he worked on.  Tilt the bike back and forth to steer.

* OutRun (1986) was a classic.  It used parallax scrolling which projected "3D scenery" with just 2D sprites.  This was also used in Space Harrier and After Burner.

* Virtua Racing (1992) was supposed to be a rally game but was made into a F1 game instead.  The animations on the tires and the pit crew served as the basis for Virtua Fighter.  Obviously, the models were low-polyand the tires were more like hexagons than they were actual circles.  EDIT: He also was able to implement multiple camera angles which were fascinating at the time.

* He talks about the differences between the developer and the average Joe player...he takes a cup for example.  If the character picks up the cup but his fingers clip through it (bad animation), then the developer cringes but the player is like "OH WOW THAT'S AWESOME!!"

* Yu Suzuki is satisfied that he was the first to make a 3D fighter in Virtua Fighter (1993).  Without it, the fighting genre may not have been the same.  He wasn't able to add textures to polygons just yet so he had to emit a certain level of detail through plain colors alone.

* Fast forward to Shenmue 1 (2000) and 2 (2001).  First, he wanted to implement Virtua Fighter's gameplay into Shenmue but that wasn't necessary.  The purpose of the game was to show the beautiful Asian landscape and to allow the player free-reign over the game (as oppposed to being funneled down the same path like many RPG's).  QTE's were inspired by the Simon electronic game and allowed you to do complicated things you couldn't normally do with a controller.  Brilliant game but it obviously didn't sell well.  A $70 million budget was put into Shenmue 1 (both the Saturn & Dreamcast versions) so when it didn't pay off, Sega was pissed.

* Finally, and this is weird, a developer shouldn't always take the advice of cohorts.  The game will turn out like every other game...like a rose without any thorns is just a carnation.  Try to do something different.

Of course this video was in 2005 so people were probably expecting a Shenmue 3 at any moment but now it is 6 years later and no such thing exists...

Also be sure to check out Yu Suzuki's words of wisdom for the game developer's book I own.