Dreamcast Racing Games Article - Tell us what you think!

[ChrisHaha2049]

I loved MSR, but I didn't care for its kudos system. A great idea in theory, but in execution, it was fundamentally flawed. It rewarded skidding (not style), and rewarded it far more than "skill". So it was prone to abuse in some challenges, entirely defeating the purpose of those challenges...and in effect, negate the purpose of the others too.

For example, Hot Lap-Fastest Lap of 3...set your goal time as easy as allowed, achieve that time on lap 1, spend the next 2 laps doing 180 degree skids for as long as you desire. Just avoid the walls, and the game was cool with that. Even for Average Lap...setting a slow goal and doing enough skidding can reward more kudos than a fast time, drifting perfectly every turn, and even getting a 'no penalty' bonus. Another example: One-on-One race...give YOURSELF a 1min head start and spend that time skidding. Again, more potential kudos than doing it the 'stylish' way.

If I remember right, a Fastest Lap challenge was one of the 4 at the start of the game. So if you're hard up for kudos early on, there ya go... Do this enough to open up more of the game, and you can then just do the bare minimum of the other challenges without worrying at all about kudos. Of course you can still do it all the 'normal way', but you don't have to. And a 'retry' option would have definitely been nice in this case...

That all said... Don't get me wrong. The actual 'racing' part of the game is great fun and what keeps me coming back. The cars handle great and the visual detail is nice. So I'll usually end up spending hours just practicing a track, racing my ghost because I just have to get a new record! I'm always telling myself, "just one more lap."

[Crynox]

Then don't let the other cars crash into you ! Stay away from them and get in front. Play the game at different times of the day, or if your that bothered adjust your Dreamcast`s clock. Living in the UK and playing at the same time each day I only experienced Japan in total darkness, which incidentally, I loved. San Francisco was always late afternoon, (I think). As for the difficulty, I never found it too hard until later levels, it is definitely a challenging game though, but then surely this is half the fun ?!

I'm not sure if you're being totally serious here, but never mind.

Firstly, since Kudos is something only the player collects, losing points to the AI's inadequacies is just bad design. End of.

Secondly, why should I have to wait to play a game at a specific time of day or arse around with the internal clock, when the developer could have just put it the option to, I dunno, choose the time of day?

And finally, my problem with the difficulty is that it's tough to know how much kudos to bet on a first run through. So you might win a race really easily that first time, but only bet to finish third losing you potential kudos. So you have to replay to get anything from it. But then the next challenge is a lot harder and you have to bump the bet down, earning you a lot less kudos. So now you have one race you can win easily, and one where you have to have a two second head start because the opponents car is faster than yours. It's uneven. The trial and error is then compounded by having ten-ish challenges in each of the twenty plus divisions, padding out an already overly long game.

MSR is still a good game and is pretty revolutionary in some respects. It definitely deserves to be talked about. I just feel that with PGR, Bizarre Creations ironed out everything that MSR did wrong and amped what it did do right up to 11. The day/night thing is just a gimmick. Give me better handling and a smoother experience any day.

Well I was kind of being serious. I don't remember the AI cars ever just randomly crashing into you, in fact I remember the AI being impressive, tough but fair so not sure how to respond to this opinion.

If you could just chose the time of day then the whole idea of what they were trying to achieve would be, pointless ?

I never started with any head start I always gave it to the AI then chased them down. The game never felt that hard to me and I certainly made loads of mistakes and was able to catch up. I'm starting to wondering if they tampered with the difficulty level between PAL & NTSC, but I don't understand if they did.

Anyway I think its a fantastic racing game, actually one of the greatest, therefore I would recommend it to anyone who likes driving games, at least give it a try.

[Crynox]

I loved MSR, but I didn't care for its kudos system. A great idea in theory, but in execution, it was fundamentally flawed. It rewarded skidding (not style), and rewarded it far more than "skill". So it was prone to abuse in some challenges, entirely defeating the purpose of those challenges...and in effect, negate the purpose of the others too.

For example, Hot Lap-Fastest Lap of 3...set your goal time as easy as allowed, achieve that time on lap 1, spend the next 2 laps doing 180 degree skids for as long as you desire. Just avoid the walls, and the game was cool with that. Even for Average Lap...setting a slow goal and doing enough skidding can reward more kudos than a fast time, drifting perfectly every turn, and even getting a 'no penalty' bonus. Another example: One-on-One race...give YOURSELF a 1min head start and spend that time skidding. Again, more potential kudos than doing it the 'stylish' way.

If I remember right, a Fastest Lap challenge was one of the 4 at the start of the game. So if you're hard up for kudos early on, there ya go... Do this enough to open up more of the game, and you can then just do the bare minimum of the other challenges without worrying at all about kudos. Of course you can still do it all the 'normal way', but you don't have to. And a 'retry' option would have definitely been nice in this case...

That all said... Don't get me wrong. The actual 'racing' part of the game is great fun and what keeps me coming back. The cars handle great and the visual detail is nice. So I'll usually end up spending hours just practicing a track, racing my ghost because I just have to get a new record! I'm always telling myself, "just one more lap."

Yes the kudos system was flawed and you could `frig` it to your advantage, but if you did so you were only cheating yourself and robbing enjoyment, so why bother ?

[Sload Soap]

Yes the kudos system was flawed and you could `frig` it to your advantage, but if you did so you were only cheating yourself and robbing enjoyment, so why bother ?

Probably because like drawing magic in Final Fantasy 8 and snaking in F-Zero GX it's a fundamentally flawed mechanic that offers more reward from breaking it than playing by its rules. So why bother?

[wryguy87]

I can't say just how different the two versions are but I do know there is a significant change between the UK and US versions on a technical level. Supposedly the UK version is quite inferior. It's supposed to have some significant glitches and visually be not well optimized. Susceptible to a lot of slowdown or something of that ilk.

I don't know the details, but I probably should note that the US version is supposed to be "superior" in the article.

[Crynox]

I can't say just how different the two versions are but I do know there is a significant change between the UK and US versions on a technical level. Supposedly the UK version is quite inferior. It's supposed to have some significant glitches and visually be not well optimized. Susceptible to a lot of slowdown or something of that ilk.

I don't know the details, but I probably should note that the US version is supposed to be "superior" in the article.

That's quite interesting. I do know there is slowdown in places, normally when it's raining at night and there is a few cars on screen. I always wanted to play the American release, (for the replays alone), but now I'm even more interested. I will report back !

[Reprise]

The UK (European PAL) version of Metropolis Street Racer is fine, as long as you don't have one of the initial releases, allegedly. However, I've bought the game 3 times and every time, it's been bugged (2 player quick races don't work, for example). Still one of my favourite racing games ever though!

The first PAL release had a number of major bugs. Unsold discs were quickly recalled and replaced with a second PAL version that eliminated most of the major bugs, but not all. Sega Europe also offered replacement disks, the final PAL version, free of charge to anyone who had purchased a bugged copy. The US release and the final PAL version were both free of major bugs, although some minor ones remained. Martyn Chudley stated that although Bizarre Creations had fixed all bugs reported to them by Sega (who were in charge of Quality Assurance) before release, some bugs must have slipped through Sega's comprehensive testing plan due to the sheer size of the game.[2]

[marurun]

I agree with some of MSR's detractors. I think the control and visuals were fantastic, but the difficulty of accruing Kudos to unlock new content was a bit frustrating. If there were some option to tone down the importance of Kudos I'd be all over it, because most of the other aspects of this racing game are top of the class for any platform.

I have to concur on the time of day issue as well. I think it's fine as a default setting, but there should be some way to override it without messing with the clock or finding a way to play at 2 AM.

The latter issue is far less important than the former, as the former basically drives off casual racing fans by keeping the game locked down without mindless grinding. If I wanted grinding I'd play an RPG. It bugs me that this game has the potential to be my favorite racer on the system, but the Kudos mechanic alone drives me to other titles.

As for complaints about the Test Drive name, it used to be a good series. And truth told, V-Rally was pretty fun even if it wasn't able to hold up to Sega Rally 2. There were, what, 3 games on the Dreamcast that went under the Test Drive banner and only one of them sucked (6). Doesn't sound too bad to me.

[Ghegs]

As for complaints about the Test Drive name, it used to be a good series. And truth told, V-Rally was pretty fun even if it wasn't able to hold up to Sega Rally 2.

I'm not sure if V-Rally can be counted as a "true" Test Drive game, since originally the game had nothing to do with the Test Drive name, only the North American Dreamcast release was branded as such, just like the North American PS1 release got stuck with the Need for Speed prefix. Elsewhere the game was simply V-Rally 2.

And to an earlier comment...both PS1 V-Rally games have analog controls when played with a neGcon.

[ExedExes]

I'm not sure if V-Rally can be counted as a "true" Test Drive game, since originally the game had nothing to do with the Test Drive name, only the North American Dreamcast release was branded as such, just like the North American PS1 release got stuck with the Need for Speed prefix. Elsewhere the game was simply V-Rally 2.

I've got Test Drive V-Rally, and it's nowhere near as arcade-y as Sega Rally 2. Very much more sim-based. The cars also appeared crushed and boxed in like cubes. But it has lots more courses and you can design your own.

I've heard enough about how bad TD6 is. It's not the pinnacle of DC racing by far, but if you just want to sit down and have a bit of fun it's not bad for that. I put in the cheat codes so I can get all the vehicles, otherwise it would take many years to unlock them. There's also a police chase mode which is probably the best feature.