Beetle Adventure Racing

[zealous marten]

Discussion for Beetle Adventure Racing!

[open roost]

N64 always gets a play in my book

[sinful totem]

Can't be worse than cruis'n right?

[open roost]

I hear good things, but have never touched it in any capacity. We shall see.

[viral mirage]

Zoom zoom

[lament cove]

You mean California the game?

[open roost]

West Coast the game

[viral mirage]

Can we play the HSV game from Australia?

[mellow quail]

I like it a lot better than cruisn. It plays closer to the Rush games but with steering being easier and gravity a little higher. And tracks are huge with a ton of secrets

[wheat pivot]

Do I dare try it on my 35XXSP?

[open roost]

https://tenor.com/view/you-must-serious-pissed-eyebrow-raise-father-blackwood-gif-12678360

[molten arrow]

I don’t see why not . It’s the exact same game .

But I don’t know why you would do that unless you really hate beetles. Which is fair I guess lol

[stone drum]

So wait is it only 6 courses and game end?

[stone drum]

That was my plan , but I get my SP in two weeks

[orchid temple]

Finished race one. Music is very bland. But the game handles fine.

Yeah, turned music off. Much better. Engine sounds aren’t great, but the tire squeals are pretty good.

[wheat pivot]

Might need to try the newest muOS if I want to actually consider this, mupen hotkeys aren’t working at the moment

[lofty merlin]

Seemed like there was a big difficulty jump at first in the medium difficulty races, but really they just jump way ahead of you at race start and once you get into the second lap they all just seem to get a lot slower? You just can't catch them for anything and then all of a sudden you jump to second in an instant. 2 cups down. About to see if professional is any harder.

[orchid temple]

And done. It was okay. Not my favorite. Think it would have been better with more and smaller tracks and better CPU opponents. It was too easy, but also kind of a slog with the races taking as long as they did.

Also, HLTB is bogus. Took me 1:49:48, and that includes watching the credits.

[stray aspen]

Yeah it was the "meh" racing game of the ones we had as options this month

[orchid temple]

Pretty sure that’s my fastest GotM completion ever.

Should have been GotW instead.

It was mostly enjoyable for < 2 hours though. Jurassic Francisco Hawaii park can suck an egg, but other than that it was fine.

[orchid temple]

Not really… just faster. Same thing. Get in first early in lap one and then just stay there unless you make a mistake and get stuck on some bogus terrain thing. I’m looking at you, skeleton tunnel entrance in the tropical map.

I will say, the draw distance and frame rate was pretty impressive. The tracks looked beautiful.

[lofty merlin]

Found the final two races on professional pretty difficult. Had to retry several times each. Seems like this game gets brought up on every n64 hidden gems list I've ever seen and... nah. It's just ok.

[stone drum]

Perfect. Might try to best it today

So I can keep the streak lol

[coarse nova]

https://tenor.com/view/punch-vw-beetle-slug-bug-gif-14134711

[lyric loom]

I like that I notice all the shortcuts on my first lap and can try them out on lap 2.

[wild plume]

Kids these days can't even play punchbug anymore, you hardly ever see them

[molten arrow]

Yes 6 courses

[molten arrow]

Hltb ruled it out of gotw though

[molten arrow]

Are you sure you found all of them ? There might be more than you think…

[lyric loom]

Of course. Routing 100% on each track might be fun one day.

[bleak vector]

Did the first two tracks. Not a very exciting racer. Shortcuts seem slower?

[molten arrow]

Depends which one . But shortcuts are also for exploration , and collecting items .

[bleak vector]

Bonus points don't even seem to do anything

DKR did what this game wants to do better

[molten arrow]

Good comparison . The adventure is better in dkr but the tracks are better in bar

[orchid temple]

I like DKR quite a bit more. This one is okay. Maybe looking for all three bonus point stuff could be fun… I’m not sure. Seems kind of tedious, but also seems like the real intent of the game. Racing is secondary.

[orchid temple]

I know. Just pointing out the HLTB time was bad. Would have been a better GotW game, imo. I know it didn’t qualify for it though.

[viral mirage]

These races are so dam long. Race 2 is done and it tried me out. Like IRL driving.

[orchid temple]

Why I called it video game Le Mans in my completion post.

Thank goodness I remapped an and b to triggers. Buttons would have really sucked.

[wind perch]

What difficulty are we to play on with this game?

[molten arrow]

There is no difficulty setting

[wheat pivot]

except for the difficulty setting when you start the championship

[stray aspen]

The only thing where the announcer doesn't mention what you chose - to save you from ebarassment.

[viral mirage]

I found that funny

[wheat pivot]

[stone drum]

Doesn’t seem to run huh

[wheat pivot]

It runs fine, I was just showing milkwalker that the announcer does shame you on your choice of difficulty

[stone drum]

ohhh ok ok

good then 😄

[fading basin]

Don't you need to complete all difficulties for completion?

[lyric loom]

Which Car did you pick ?

[viral mirage]

HSV

[coarse nova]

"Car"

[edgy compass]

this game is pretty hard to emulate. If you don't use the paraLLEI, the fog is missing in mount mayhem. Unless there's a way to get it working with glideN64 that I don't know about. I had to use 2x on the steam deck, going to 4x I would get under 60 often and the audio would crackle

[simple cypress]

Okay, so what does it take to get a credit?

[fading basin]

On higher resolutions the fog is also bugged on parallel, but I suffered through that cause I don't want to play in og resolution

[edgy compass]

hmm, how so? The only strange thing is that you can see the outline of the trees sometimes. Other than that, it looked okay to me.

[fading basin]

I'm on 8x cause PC, maybe lower is fine, but there is like this white reflection of level geometry on screen (or maybe this is due to some other setting, but I didn't really change anything from the default apart the resolution)

[molten arrow]

Yeah but you need to do all three to roll credits

[edgy compass]

oh I think I know what you mean. I think it's just how the geometry is in this game and upscaling it makes that visible. I've seen that when trying to use glideN64 at 4x.

either way, it looks... charming in a way at 2x. So I'm enjoying it. Also using the "fullspeed" option so it runs very smooth, not something you'd expect out of an n64 game

[simple cypress]

So all races in all difficulty?

[molten arrow]

Yes. It’s different track s

[molten arrow]

All championships

[coarse nova]

Me an hour or so ago: Oh man, Easy Mode done. This is an easy point!

Me now:

https://tenor.com/view/roman-reigns-leans-forward-universal-champion-get-up-from-seat-serious-gif-22798306

although I didn't need the pro gamer move of leaning forward that much. It's just... tedious?

[simple cypress]

I played the easy ones. Very tedious indeed

Tomorrow is another day

[molten arrow]

According to liquid it is very easy but we all know liquid is not human

[molten arrow]

Try to find the good shortcuts

[simple cypress]

Liquid is pro player

Don't compare him to us. We're just peasants

which is meta in this game? Handling, Speed, Accel?

I tried handling and I'm able to turn very good

[edgy compass]

I find it fun looking for the shortcuts and trying to use them. Also trying to hit the boxes. Apparently there's 100 points on each track and I haven't gotten even close to that.

I just wish the music was better. That's the boring part to me

[simple cypress]

But the nitro isn't recharged. Once you used it, it's gone

Inferno one is the most annoying so far

[edgy compass]

the one after inferno is pretty fun

[simple cypress]

I haven't continued the moderate one

Tomorrow then, lol

[edgy compass]

I just did novice and advanced myself, I'll continue tomorrow

[simple cypress]

I wish someone would kindly review the mechanic of this game, between top speed, accel, and handling, which one is the most effective?

[edgy compass]

I don't really know, I tried to go with the yellow on novice (I think that had the highest top speed) and then with the balanced one for advanced (the purple/first one) which had the top speed somewhere in between the other 2, but the handling was better

[wheat pivot]

I have decided the SP is not a great device for this game. My thumb is likely to fall off before being able to finish

[edgy compass]

it doesn't matter too much I think, the AI is pretty easy and slows down often, waits for you. (at least on the first 2 difficulties)

[edgy compass]

try a device with a trigger and an analog. You can set the acceleration to trigger (though it's the left trigger on my mapping). And cornering with the analog stick feels pretty good.

[wheat pivot]

Thinking the Odin is probably a better device for this for the reasons you said

I'd rather somewhat enjoy the game and abandon the meme of finishing all gotms on the SP

[edgy compass]

yep. And the odin should be powerful enough to run the parallei RDP too

[wheat pivot]

https://tenor.com/view/unlimited-power-star-wars-gif-10270127

[stray aspen]

Maybe it was when you chose easy? I specifically remember him just going "Okay"

It's been a couple decades

[wheat pivot]

no excuses

[stray aspen]

Ah it might be on single races

Try that

[wheat pivot]

oh, so the game DOES shame you on the championship circuit but for single races doesn't care

[stray aspen]

ok phew, not crazy

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/989399803249164328/1257371106700955648/JmYtk0YIVS-7kFjo.mp4?ex=66842998&is=6682d818&hm=bb0dc63ed639e8f4c2187afa15a743218648b8f66230efa980deed35ff61fad7&

[lyric loom]

L resets your position and speed whenever, and I think this can be abused

[molten arrow]

Don’t know what is meta but I also prefer handling

[orchid temple]

Is there a way to reverse? I never figured it out. It would have been very helpful in a few circumstances. I'm really confused how people are finding this one difficult. I finished 1st every race except for the Jurassic Park island on the last two championships, and that was just because of the stupid rubberbanding and it's nearly impossible to hit those last two jumps at speed and not fly into the lava. The rest of the game was literally just get into first place like 30 seconds into a race and then endure for 8 more minutes. 🤣

I admit, the driving physics in this one felt really good. Drifting around corners was super easy and felt great.

It's probably my second favorite N64 racer now, behind DKR. DKR sets a high bar. I don't think beetle adventure racing is really that close to it, but it's probably the next best one. I don't like a lot of N64 stuff, I'm learning.

[lyric loom]

agree that it's easy. didn't notice too much difference between beginner and professional. the driving was cozy. I liked that the tracks were generally pretty wide.

[fading basin]

Did you play Star Wars Racer? If not, it's great

[orchid temple]

Not on N64, but yeah, that's a good one.

[simple cypress]

Most Efficient Tactical Available (META)

[mellow quail]

That's a backronym lol it's actually an abbreviation for metagame. Means "the game beyond the game".

and yeah my fav N64 racer is f-zero x but this is one of the better ones

[viral mirage]

I am falling asleep playing this. I think tracks a bit too long.

[wind perch]

Chose the car with the best handling for the Intermediate level. Hard to catch up after making a mistake. Not terribly hard, but not entirely easy.

Leaning all of the track shortcuts seems to help a lot.

[viral mirage]

Do you have to beat it at each difficulty?

[wind perch]

I think so. Only past one so far. It unlocked the next so assuming it is a progression.

[molten arrow]

Yeah I meant I don’t know if handling is Meta or not . Just my personal choice

[molten arrow]

Reverse is a + z

[orchid temple]

Never would have found it since I wrote over the z trigger assignment.

[wind perch]

I'm just hittinig the button that puts resest the car.

[orchid temple]

I didn’t find that one either. Really, I just needed gas, brake, and steering. The only other times things were need were pretty circumstantial and happened like once. Each.

[wind perch]

Playing track 1 on professional. Finished 2nd. Beat the best time by about 20 seconds and was in 7th coming into lap 3. The rubber banding is really odd in this game.

[molten arrow]

It’s the only game I know in which rubberband helps you instead of cheating you

[spark bough]

I took my RP3+ to the park to play this game while hanging out with my puppy but I'm going to have to hash out controls thanks to the N64's weird control scheme

[bleak vector]

I hate rubber banding. Using the car with the highest top speed at max speed and being passed by another car feels so bad. Then they decide to go incredibly slow in the straight

Also, they pretty consistently brake AFTER they complete a turn

[molten arrow]

Yeah I wish it was not a thing

[lyric loom]

the rubber banding also makes the shortcuts less fun unfortunately

[wind perch]

The AI cars can clip though walls. They also are tough to wipe out. I did T-bone one and destroy it, that was fun.

[wind perch]

So made it through. The best time on the last track is a bit of a lie. You don't have to hit it to get 1st place. The difficulty from this game came from the same racer placing 1st or 2nd so I had to do one better. Lots of save loading to make up for mistakes, not sure how to catch up except to learn the track shortcuts or load a state. Could be going 130 and get passed into 7th place. It looks like the top race time has something to do with it too. Try to aim for those time. Without loading saves, I didn't have a shot in this short of time.

The good news is that it's comparable by mortals :).

[orchid temple]

It’s not as satisfying as it could, since ramming the car also slows you down a fair amount. I had some pretty brutal takedowns though, and it was fun. The rubber banding was bad. Like Mario kart bad,

[pastel zinc]

Dang. Gotta beat all the difficulties for credits on this one, huh?

[orchid temple]

Yes. They add one more track for each difficulty too. But you get to play the first three every time.

[pastel zinc]

Aaah, gotcha

[stray aspen]

So I remapped the controls on the Deck to be R2 as the accelerator and L2 as the brake - you can tap the brake to mildly drift

Controls aren't horrible

Music is extremely lazy

[spark bough]

What's the difference between "brake" and "hand brake" in the controls?

also it would be easier to remap controls if I knew what C1 through C4 actually corresponded to

[stray aspen]

Brake is just that, hand brake is a sudden brake that causes you to list sideways

[spark bough]

Hmm. I cannot get the triggers to work with anything mapped to them

Like I can map stuff to the triggers, but they just don't... work

and I did do an input test in Android. The physical inputs register. RetroArch just won't translate them to what I've mapped to them

[bleak vector]

There's your problem. Use standalone Mupen

[spark bough]

Is RetroArch on Android just naturally bad?

[bleak vector]

RA is fine, but Mupen has many more options and it's very well designed

[spark bough]

because I tried this exact same thing on my desktop, in RetroArch, and I was able to map shit to the triggers just fine. On Android, I can map hotkeys to the triggers fine. On Android, the triggers work fine on cores for systems that have an L2 and an R2, like PS1. But using the triggers as actual controller inputs on systems like the N64 and SNES in RetroArch on Android? Nope.

[stone drum]

you don't get credits after finishing the 6 tracks on easy?

[stone drum]

ive been using RA on the Odin 2 for n64 and everything works like a charm

[spark bough]

Yes, but have you been mapping anything to the triggers? I can't seem to map any actual in-game controls to the triggers. Hotkeys for shit like fast-forward, sure

This doesn't seem to be limited to the RP3+ built-in controls, either. Using a Bluetooth controller also doesn't work

but the standalone Mupen? I can map actual in-game controls to the triggers in that. Just not in RetroArch

[stone drum]

what are you trying to map to the triggers?

[spark bough]

A and B

so I can use gas and brake with the triggers

[stone drum]

ohhh ok let me try

Yeah it worked

Actually you’re right that’s better haha

Im using RA 1.17.0
Mupen64Plus-Next 2.6 Vulkan

[edgy compass]

go into the game's settings and set the controls to "trigger" so you actually get analog acceleration

[spark bough]

I could maybe do that if the core would actually let me map triggers

Except... well no. RP3+ triggers are clickers, not analog

[edgy compass]

ah, didn’t know that

[spark bough]

I'm going insane

I don't know why my RetroArch won't let me do that

Hmm. Looks like my RetroArch version is 1.9.14

I have an online updater dohickey in the menu but updating RA itself doesn't seem to be one of its options

[stone drum]

but on the odin 2? or which handheld

[spark bough]

RP3+

[stone drum]

wait

let me try on the rp3+ lol

because on my rp3+ I use mupen external because RA doesn't run the zelda games

[spark bough]

let me know what version your retroarch is, too

it probably didn't help that my version of retroarch was apparently not current

I now have version 1.19.1

[stone drum]

1.15

Same mupen as Odin 2

maybe it could be the RA version?

[spark bough]

now I'm just working on getting it to recognize my menu hotkey

I use L3+R3 but it's having difficulty with that for some reason

[stone drum]

hmmmm thats kinda weird

[spark bough]

looks like L3 and R3 weren't already set in basic controller bindings. fixed that

OK, with the actual current RetroArch version, the problem is fixed and I can use the fucking trigger thank fuck

[stone drum]

yeah trigger works better than using the A button lol

[spark bough]

and now I'm getting weird audio slowdown

oh well. what shader do y'all use

[stone drum]

crt-guest-r-mini.glslp

and move some setting around to make it look legit hehe

[spark bough]

...updating RA also fixed the thing where it throws up a bunch of invalid memory operand errors about leaderboards when starting the game

that looks nicer than zfast

[forest delta]

So many cool longcuts to find

and then ignore

[edgy compass]

I just used the one from misc/image adjustment and changed the shader parameters -> zoom, until I could no longer see top and bottom black bars.

[molten arrow]

Exactly . That’s the hard part for me : to stay on track instead of exploring and finding bonuses . My plan is to try to find all the bonuses in a second play through … with a better car .

[spark bough]

I admittedly don't know what the "bonus" things are

[lyric loom]

In championships, collecting a certain amount of points (50-65) will gain you a continue... If you collect all the boxes (reaching 100 points) in any one level, you'll unlock a brand-new Beetle Battle Arena for you and your friends to play in.

[wind perch]

You need to do the circuit on the 3 difficulties, not individual races. Not sure which one you are trying from this comment.

I found some 10-pointer boxes in my playthrough. I'm guessing that there are higher ones still. 100 points seems quite high.

[spark bough]

oh, boxes

[molten arrow]

No 10 is the biggest

[molten arrow]

What do you mean ? The easy championship has 3 tracks . You need to finish all three championships

[orchid temple]

Always works fine for me.

[spark bough]

We figured out what it was. It's that the default version of RetroArch I had was outdated and had bugs like that

I went and downloaded the current version from the RetroArch site instead of using one from the Play store and the problem was fixed

[orchid temple]

Oh yeah, the play store one is garbage.

[forest delta]

It's about three years old now

They can't update it, they should remove it

[orchid temple]

Yeah, they really should just remove it.

[wind perch]

For the latest retroarch, use obtainium to get it or the amazon app store.

[orchid temple]

Or just the ret art patch website. They provide an apk.

But obtainium will update for you.

[stiff wadi]

Man, the handbrake is so clutch

[simple cypress]

I'm done, surprisingly... I thought there was more

[orchid temple]

I never used the handbrake.

[pine pumice]

Novice stage 3 ramps difficulty for me. Can’t stay on the track

[stray aspen]

Slow down

[pine pumice]

Just did that now. And won novice championship. Now to the next difficulty

[stray aspen]

You can use the handbrake to drift through the entire level but like you have to kind of be good at it first

[bleak vector]

I just pump the gas through the corners. Got me through the intermediate courses fine

[lyric loom]

Or just plow into the wall and then hit L

[edgy compass]

the game is extremely easy. Even if you get off track, the AI will wait for you. I had moments where I got stuck in a wall for seconds, but I still caught up to the first place, they seemingly almost stop when you're behind.

[pastel zinc]

This game is very strange. Did VW pay to have this made?

[wind perch]

This has been mentioned before. I never was able to do this. It would take a clean lap to go from 8th to 1st.

[viral mirage]

I don't want to race these long ass races for the 3rd time. This game gets worse the more you play it. Feels like a long road trip for work with no good radio stations.

[molten arrow]

That’s what I do in pretty much every racing game lol

As it is my first ever winning nom, it is indeed shocking to see that some people don’t appreciate the game as much as I expected .
At least some people seem to enjoy it so that balances it out

[pine pumice]

I’m using it to play through some backlogged podcasts. But you’re right - 3min+ laps are insane!

[molten arrow]

I personally love king Laos

Long laps

[wind perch]

Competent game overall. I didn't get turned around as much as normal.

[lyric loom]

long laps but they can be different if you choose to go for different paths on laps 2 and 3. and the end of lap 3 is always different. every race is 3 laps as opposed to something like speed punks where some of the races were 5 laps.

[viral mirage]

It just never feels like I am going fast in the game. It never took me over 2 mins for any the speed punks races. I rather play speed punks again

[wind perch]

speed punks was rough. This was boring, but playable.

Wish we had nitrous 🙂

[orchid temple]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/742975962232258671/1017303927135416320/image0.jpg?ex=668588dc&is=6684375c&hm=0b4410fef4f0b83817e251628a3cb3a663f9c4ee66d9df25e0c471dd77fa08b6&

[molten arrow]

That has to be the biggest insult to beetle adventure racing so far .

[viral mirage]

I liked that game. People said it was boring. This is by far the most broing game I play in a while.

[viral mirage]

I am upset with myself. I switch my vote to this. Should done more research on it.

[molten arrow]

I am sure threads of fate would have bring as much hate .

[pine pumice]

Has anyone gotten enough points from the boxes to win prizes? I barely hit any boxes. I find the AI annoying but not as bad as cruisin

[molten arrow]

And the research would have tell you that this game is great. It’s pretty much unanimous in the reviews .

[viral mirage]

Not really.

[stray aspen]

Enjoying this so far, not amazing obviously but good in small chunks.

Probably going to drag it out over the weekend

[molten arrow]

This is from meta critic :

[viral mirage]

Paid for reviews great. Back to 6 mins tracks

[stray aspen]

The game was originally a Need for Speed entry but became a licensed IP. Dev team were the same as behind F-1 World Grand Prix, Pilotwings 64, etc

Coupled with the very popular Beetle release, it sold well

[viral mirage]

Still doesn't make it fun.

[stray aspen]

I'm having fun

[sinful totem]

Milk "I'm not the racing game guy" Walker

[viral mirage]

Lets rubber ban the hell out of this game. Is the major issue. Second all the boxes are off the road. Third all the cars are the same. Forth the tracks are too long. Fifth you have to play the same 3 tracks 3 times in a row.

[stray aspen]

I've played maybe 5 racing games

[orchid temple]

I enjoyed it overall. Turning off the music helps with the monotony though. The music tracks aren’t dynamic or long enough for how long the race tracks are.

[fading basin]

Enjoy your win! I had my first win last month, and obviously not everyone is going to like it, but I had a great time talking with people about Half-Life

[wind perch]

Humble brag

[mellow quail]

Yeah when I had my first win someone said it was the worst game they'd ever played for gotx lol

[orchid temple]

Everyone loved parachute pants aladdin wannabe though.

https://tenor.com/view/beyond-oasis-story-of-thor-mega-drive-sega-genesis-gif-23328145

absoluetly 0 hate for that game.

[molten arrow]

Who would say something like that

[orchid temple]

@mellow quail You didn't nominate Pokemon card 2, right?

[viral mirage]

No that on the rails N64 game. I think

[orchid temple]

whew. Wasn't me then.

[molten arrow]

(I don’t know if I actually said it but sin and punishment is in fact the worst gotx game I played , even to this day)

[orchid temple]

I enjoyed it well enough. It had issues, but it was entertaining.

[viral mirage]

I don't know we had some real bad ones in gotw

[stiff wadi]

Finally finished 2nd cup; woof.

Decent driving physics, but man are those races long.

Oh haha apparently I've been handbraking with the downshifter. Maybe in automatic they're the same lol?

Anyone driving manual?

[mellow quail]

No it was sin and punishment

[open roost]

I enjoyed Sin and Punishment for what it was. It was a wild ride, literally in terms of the air carrier section.

[mellow quail]

The sequel is better but yeah I still like the first one. I like this game too but I'm not sure I've ever actually played it for completion. Might space it out over the month so I don't get bored

[viral mirage]

Sin and Punishment and REZ made me like on the rails shooters again. Starfox not so much

[stray aspen]

Yeah did not like that one

[spark bough]

That's something I guess. Rollcage seemed to want you to be driving the wrong way

[wind perch]

This does have some of the flat obstacles in the way like rollcage though. Watch out for sudden stops.

[pastel zinc]

A masterpiece of a game

[stray aspen]

I enjoyed tcg2

[wintry topaz]

Dw, at least you didn't nominate Front Mission so you're good in my books.

[stray aspen]

[stiff wadi]

Man, that's like the fifth time the cpu has sideswiped into me and pushed me out of the level boundaries 😡

https://tenor.com/view/he-cant-keep-getting-away-with-it-gif-19335672

[molten arrow]

Stop being the victim. Be the aggressor .

Bumping into the side of a car at full speed is actually a good strategy

[stiff wadi]

Haha yeah sometimes it works out. I like the way they basically slam on the brakes if you touch them at all 😛

[bleak vector]

Well I got minimal enjoyment out of that. Shortcuts actively hindered you. There were like 2 in the whole game that were actually faster. Bonus boxes would have been a great idea if they served any actual purpose. Music was ass. Rubber banding was random and unfun

[wintry topaz]

Won the first race. Another racer just crashed into me and straight up perished.

[wind perch]

That is the best. A rear end hit and they disintegrate.

[wintry topaz]

I do hope they are all right

Gotta say, driving doesn't really feel too good in this game. (dunno if it's the car, went with red because everyone knows red means the best)

[viral mirage]

It's not good at all. Some will gaslight you saying it is.

[fading basin]

Car with best steering controls great

[stray aspen]

What specifically do you not like about the driving?

It feels fine to me so I'm curious

[wintry topaz]

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is how little it feels like I'm in control myself. It seems that they went with more realistic approach with the handling, where the cars are heavy and turning gets really stiff in the higher speeds, but at the same time the cars become floaty at the most inconvenient times, bouncing around and going all over the place when you try to make small adjustments going into the tunnel or jumping from a ramp.

Might be just that I'm bad at the game, but it doesn't turn when I want and turns when I don't want.

(Also probably doesn't help that I'm rawdogging this on my RP3+, where the analogs are in pretty unfortunate positions. One day I'll get myself a grip.)

[granite sapphire]

Got all cocky in the first two championships

here I go on Advanced or whatever and I am getting WRECKED

I assume the shortcuts are absolutely required at this stage?

[lyric loom]

No just drive cleanly

[wintry topaz]

Oh there's a handbrake

[lyric loom]

The rubber banding will make the AI cars catch up regardless of the shortcuts you take

[wintry topaz]

https://tenor.com/view/sloth-happy-content-slow-smile-gif-4739556

[lyric loom]

Abuse L to immediately reset your position if you lose control

[molten arrow]

Yeah you just need to pick a car with better handling

[wintry topaz]

Yeah, I chose the highest available.

[orchid temple]

I actually thought the driving felt really good in this one. Agree with terribles complaints too, but I did have fun with the driving. The levels were neat and interesting, just too long.

[forest delta]

On advanced I had to find the few actual shortcuts and take them

It was alright overall

One of those that would be way better when playing slowly, getting legit good and finding the shortcuts

[wintry topaz]

Okay, the final championship managed to be enjoyable once I started getting a hang of it.

[granite sapphire]

See this is actually where I'm having trouble - the cars with the highest handling for me can't really catch up to even the 7th place racer on Professional

[granite sapphire]

Can't seem to keep up the pace with the rest of the pack unless I have the highest speed car, which makes it a bit harder to drive cleanly

For me, feels like I need those shortcuts to get into 1st, then clean driving to keep 1st

probably just a skill issue on my part - how often is everyone using ebrake to get around turns?

[lyric loom]

So weird. I wonder what’s going on. Literally every race for me was: grab 1st place within a minute of start, hold 1st for the entire race. Sometimes I’d crash and have to catch up but it was never difficult. Not calling skill issue, just wondering if there’s something else going on.

[granite sapphire]

Oh that is a bit crazy - not my experience at all. Felt like one of those "slowly make it to first over the course of three laps" type of games (like Top Gear)

fastest car helps getting into first, but still takes me a good 2 laps

also fun to get sacked by another beetle, have my steering completely lock up, and eat shit because of it

Yeah ok so Sunset Sands course, on Professional, 100% clean racing from start, fastest car, still in 8th after 50 seconds

curious what everyone else's experience is - if it;s just me who is finding an incredible difficulty spike on Professional

[viral mirage]

Tap ||L right before the count down in the start of the game and you get a boast || this will put in at least 3rd

[molten arrow]

What I didn’t know that thanks

[granite sapphire]

Not for me - using the car with the fastest acceleration, I can get to 6th with this trick. Using the fastest car, still 8th (just a tiny bit closer to 7th place)

[orchid temple]

I picked the balanced car every race. Was still able to get into first pretty early on in every race. Never used the handbrake.

I didn’t use the L button at all either.

The only shortcut I can think of that is kind of mandatory is track 3 during the city. You can cut through an alley and skip all the switch backs.

I firmly believe the shortcuts aren’t actually shortcuts and they exist purely to hide bonus boxes.

[stray aspen]

Mostly correct

[granite sapphire]

straight up seems like we're playing different games

[lyric loom]

What device are you playing on?

[granite sapphire]

405v

[viral mirage]

Use the pal version of the game ?

[granite sapphire]

is that what you're using?

would love to see a video of someone doing just like, the first minute of the first race on professional

[stray aspen]

I am not using the PAL version and I am not having the issues you are

[granite sapphire]

What device/core are you using?

[stray aspen]

Whatever Retroarch on the deck uses

[granite sapphire]

I really doubt it's the 405v not emulating this correctly (I'm also using RA)

[stray aspen]

But this doesn't sound like a performance issue

[granite sapphire]

probably just me getting old and shit at videogames

switching to softcore mode like a fucking idiot

[stray aspen]

Well, not a device performance issues

Do you find yourself hitting walls a lot?

[granite sapphire]

not really - mostly getting hit by other racers and then getting careened into walls

(except on the city level - hitting PLENTY of walls there)

[granite sapphire]

Can you also sneak into 3rd right away using the respawn trick?

[lyric loom]

I also played on steam deck. Mupen64plus-next

[granite sapphire]

bonkers

I've really got no explanation - gonna attribute it to skill issue

would love to study someone's video of getting into first place within the first lap on professional, including the instant-3rd-place start

[granite sapphire]

save states trivialized the challenge quite a bit but I still felt that shortcuts, and avoiding the wrong shortcuts, was still crucial in even getting to 1st place

Although... I suppose I can just re-enable hardcore mode and load my completed save, and use the alien car to go back through

https://tenor.com/view/big-brain-gif-27108854

[fading basin]

Only played the easy races so far, but might record it for you, if that ends up being how my race looks like

[wind perch]

This was my experience as well. Had to have very clean laps to pass people up.

[orchid temple]

Maybe I’ll play the first race again and record it for you tonight.

I’ll see if steam deck can handle running it and recording.

[wheat pivot]

First race down. Might as well call me Kirby from here on out

https://tenor.com/view/herbie-spinning-donuts-car-volkswagen-beetle-gif-27056006

[lyric loom]

I just started a championship on professional and heck this is a lot harder. I wonder if I ran into some kind of glitch where the AI cars didn’t get better when I went from one difficulty to the next?

[steady field]

Anyone else have the screen turning white? Using retroarch mupen64plus-next core

[slow quail]

My 351P runs this, wow! Few graphics glitches, but hey. And I love alternative routes. Gonna have fun with it.

[orchid temple]

@granite sapphire Maybe professional was a bit harder than I remember. Still not too difficult to come in first. I forgot the track a little bit, but I ignored all alternate routes and just stayed on the main track. I was playing without sound. It is in the video still, but I couldn't hear it during recording (hence the music being on and me not turning it off). Sound effects like tires squealing do help. I definitely made plenty of mistakes and missed some nitro boxes that would have helped, but I guess it is my fastest time on Coventry Cove. Also missed a demo of the guy in first place. 😦 Best advice is just to learn the tracks and learn to drive them cleanly. It's really not difficult, and the rubber banding does help you if you happen to fall behind. Like, quite a bit, I think.

https://youtu.be/U7gH6Zp50Gs

[granite sapphire]

Thanks! This is more in line with my experience, although whatever you're running this on is performing slightly better than the 405v I was running. I doubt that has a ton of impact, but was the only real discrepancy I noticed. I finally got it thanks to save states, and then went back through on hardcore with my new Alien Bug to get my hardcore mode revenge on the professional championship (And boy did I...)

(what happens at your 1:53 hurts me deep in my soul because of how often it happens to me)

[orchid temple]

I just wanted to do this quick and make it easy to upload and all, so this is my PC. Glad you got it figured out. I actually think it might be easier if you do a little worse... not sure though. I only beat my other best time by like half a second.

but I don't remember it being as tight a finish as this one the first time through.

I got second on the 3rd race because those jumps right at the end through the lava ravaged village are really tough to get through without dying.

[granite sapphire]

crazy thing is I used to own this game back in the day, but none of that muscle memory stuck around. The only thing I remembered from those days was that having an intricate knowledge of which of each course's various routes was fastest was the key to (at least my) success

and I found that most courses have that "one shortcut" that is a significant time save, vs all of the other detours that are just for bonus boxes

[orchid temple]

I think the two that I typically use are the jump to the left right after the tunnel exits on the first track and the skipping through the alley to miss the switch backs on the third map. Maybe going through the ice wall in the second map, but I’m not sure that one is actually faster.

[granite sapphire]

Yup stonehenge skip on the first course is a big one

sand ramp on the left side after the splits in the desert course is a big one there, too

[orchid temple]

But they’re all very beatable without the alternate paths.

[forest delta]

A bit funny that you said you got first early and then kept it and your video has you dead last 3 minutes in starting the second lap

It was definitely a slog to get first, all the other cars have a narrow band and you can't take over more than one at a time, except for the crazy car on each track that barrels through until it's first

I couldn't do the Egypt one without the shortcut that's a ramp on the left, then a jump. Avoids the big straight then temple entrance with a very hard right turn. Passed at least 2 cars each lap with it

[orchid temple]

Yeah, I don’t remember it being that close. But I did play the whole game in one sitting. Kind of all blurred together. The first lap had the most mistakes, I think.

I also burned out at the start, on accident.

[edgy compass]

are you using the "fullspeed" on the emulator? I have a suspicion the game is easier/the AI behaves differently when running at the fullspeed versus the original fps.

[granite sapphire]

I have not checked that! I'll do some investigating and see

[wheat pivot]

I’m stuck on this track, definitely need to investigate this shortcut

[molten arrow]

Third race of medium championship is where it gets hard for me .
I really need to stop going for the shortcuts as they are pretty hard to pull off. It’s do or die and I die most of the time lol

[marble slate]

Credits roll after Advanced or Professional?

[viral mirage]

Pro

[marble slate]

Danke

[open roost]

Started playing this and...I'm not really feeling it. Going to finish it eventually, but 6+ minutes a race is too damn long!

Oh thank goodness, there's only three races per "cup"

[stray aspen]

Well

Technically those 3 races are on every cup yes

[open roost]

Ah, so it ends up being an additional track for each new "cup" kinda situation?

[wheat pivot]

I was thinking how easy the 2nd circuit was until the new 4th track. It’s not fun

[open roost]

Blegh. It's not necessarily a "bad" game, per se, I'm just not having a lot of fun with it at the moment.

[bleak vector]

Threads died for this. That's the biggest crime

[stray aspen]

Good

[fading basin]

Bought Forza 4 on summer sale, it has countless races, it's very surreal that back in the day you bought a racing game and it had like 5 races. But I guess it checks out, 12 mb game vs 70 gb game. People exaggerate with this game so hard. I had good time with it. For me, the only better racing game in gotm and gotw that we played was ridge racer (kong was before my time, so I don't count that).

[bleak vector]

This game came out 2 years after Gran Turismo. That had 11 tracks in it. And this game came out the same year as GT2. That had 26 tracks in it, although probably a third are alterations of other tracks

Oh, and Gran Turismo had more than "Car" to choose from

[forest delta]

The tracks in this are impressively big for N64 though

DKR is a much better game to be sure but not because of the tracks

[orchid temple]

These tracks are impressive, but they’re too big. I would say the big tracks is the biggest problem with the game, so yes, DKR is better and in large part because of the tracks. I think DKR has great shortcuts, it does the same thing this tried to do with coin races but better. It’s just better all around. Just because you can make 8 minute tracks, doesn’t mean you should.

[molten arrow]

I agree dkr is better because it’s obviously a bigger budget title. Many characters , a nice story , an open world, etc. But for me the tracks are definitely better in bar. The bigger tracks get me more involved in the race . I don’t want a 2 hour race like in real life, but 2 minutes is too short to get the feeling that you are actually racing. more importantly : the driving is better in bar than in dkr

Overall my top 3 for 64 racers :

1. World driver championship
2. Diddy Kong Racing
3. Beetle Adventure Racing

[orchid temple]

Never played world driver championship, I remember you recommending it once. I don’t think I’ll like it more than DKR though from what I’ve seen. There really just aren’t a lot of good racing game on N64. For me DKR set the bar really high and everything else so far is pretty dramatically under it.

[bleak vector]

The problem with BAR is the tracks are long, but it's so many long straights with slight turns. Racing is more exciting when you spend less time at max speed. You don't even need the brake pedal in this game. It oversimulates understeer and lets you take basically any turn at any speed by letting off the gas

Mario Kart is the king of casual racers because there's so much input from the player. Collect item boxes and coins and drift around turns constantly. This game has none of that

Also, the bonus boxes are more frustrating than anything. The controls didn't feel very responsive, although I'm not sure if that was because of using tiny sticks on a handheld. I even constantly missed the easy boxes on the side because microadjustments made me narrowly miss them every time

[mellow quail]

Dkr, waverace, and f-zero x are the holy trinity of N64 racers imo. And then there's some good ones outside of that I like but possibly with some nostalgia involved

[orchid temple]

Forgot all about wave race somehow.

[molten arrow]

Because it’s on water , I forgot it too. Great game for sure .

[molten arrow]

World driver championship is so much better than diddy Kong racing. Much more serious though : no items, shortcuts or anything. I almost nominated it instead of beetle adventure racing, but I don’t think there would have been as much vote for a 35 hours racing game .

[marble slate]

I'm probably going to get flogged for this but I enjoyed Speed Freaks way more than this

ducks behind cover

[fading basin]

I actually enjoyed Speed Punks/Freaks too, it's probably 3rd on my list of gotx racers, I'm just not huge fan of kart racers, so I rank beetle higher

I mean I like them on couch coop with friends, but like having a perfect race, and then ai uses an item and you lose is very annoying

[mellow quail]

Hydro thunder is good too tho the DC port is better

Also I love the Rush games (especially 2 tho 2049 is cool too) but that might be mostly nostalgia

[stray aspen]

Man I haven't played any of these

[forest delta]

S.C.A.R.S

[orchid temple]

Hydro thunder is great, but I’d rather play Dreamcast. Same with rush 2049. Not sure I’ve played any besides 2049 and SF for rush.

And I’ve never really been a big fan f-zero fan.

[mellow quail]

Rush 2 is the one with tracks all over the USA. More variety and tighter controls than 1 and laid the foundation for the stunt mode in 2049

[molten arrow]

I just finished the desert race . That was some crazy emotions. I took this shortcut and at the end I landed that giant jump that I didn’t even think was possible . Went from 6th to 1st place. In my top 5 gaming moment for sure .

[open roost]

Sands level was wild, just finished that one on Advanced. Worried about Professional

[open roost]

Sands is the worst level. It wasn't much harder in Professional than Advanced, but the extra ||Metro|| level afterwards is actually easier.

[molten arrow]

You mean worst as your least favorite or the hardest ?

[wheat pivot]

I still can’t get past it on Advanced

That level might be what keeps me from finishing this game 🙄

[open roost]

Yes

[molten arrow]

I think it’s actually the easiest if you take the right shortcut .
I am guessing you did not find it .
Near the beginning , just after a little dune, you turn left and you will be on an alternate path . Follow it and do the two jumps . At the end you will enter inside a building . Instead of following the path on the right , throw yourself in the air at full speed, over the lake . If you make it on the other side of the lake, good. If you don’t, no big deal : just press L before you fall on the lake .

[wheat pivot]

The shortcut is a great time saver but has just as many hairpin turns as the regular track. After you take the little elevator down and go over the wooden bridge there’s like 3 90 degree turns back to back and I’m just constantly slamming into the wall and losing my entire lead

[molten arrow]

If you do like I said it shouldn’t happen. I don’t take any elevator . And no 90 degree turns. It’s really just jumping over the lake from the top and while you are over the lake pressing L to be brought back on the main track . I wish I could record footage to show you but I don’t know how

[strong mauve]

Done. I liked the tracks.

[hard nymph]

Just got started with this one. It’s surprisingly nice to play on the H. I’ve heard so many good things about it over the years, but first impressions are mixed. The cars are fun to drive, but the tracks are outrageously long and the music is mid as heck.

[pastel zinc]

Yeah, the tracks are waaaay too long for me.

Does the difficulty pick up in the final round? I feel like the AI all slam on their breaks to let me catch up if I fall behind

[edgy compass]

The difficulty didn't feel like it increased for me. It felt like that for all the cups. The AI seems to work in your favour more often than not.

[wind perch]

The difficulty may be in having to finish in 1st or 2nd to keep the championship hopes alive.

[pastel zinc]

I haven't come in second yet but maybe it gets tougher in the final circuit

There are plenty of times I've fallen behind but then the first place car completely stops so I can catch up

[wheat pivot]

@orchid temple idk how you did this game in one sitting. I’m giving up, 0/10 rpg stars

[orchid temple]

I don’t know… I don’t know how anyone could be struggling with it. lol. Second place was as bad as I ever finished, and it wasn’t even really close most of the time.

[wheat pivot]

Eh, I’m not gonna pretend like this is a good game

[hard nymph]

How do you like other N64 racers, out of curiosity?

[hard nymph]

effffff this sand level, what the heck

[wheat pivot]

That’s what I’m saying!

I really liked Pod racer and some of the others. This is the only N64 racer I can remember having such a hard time with

[forest delta]

Bill's forte is menu games, but this one is parkour unfortunately

[wheat pivot]

Weird way to say “games that require skill and thought” but

[molten arrow]

I agree with bill : menus games could be called games that require thought and parkour games , games that require skills .

This one is definitely a skill based game .

[lyric loom]

“Menus” means timing/reflexes/dexterity doesn’t matter, “parkour” means they do

[fading basin]

How timing, reflexes and dexterity don't matter in counter strike lol

[hard nymph]

The difficulty spike from advanced to professional is nuts

[orchid temple]

Maybe this game was just incredibly easy for me since I just finished all the DRT cars in r4.

[lyric loom]

I’m convinced there’s a glitch where sometimes the cars don’t rank up correctly. Because I’m not that great at racers and I found this really easy.

[molten arrow]

Like an emulation glitch ?

[fading basin]

I'm starting to think people don't realise that you unlock new cars and keep playing with basic ones in harder championships, this would explain the difficulty

[hard nymph]

I know about the car unlocks. It’s just that the CPU is so much faster than you on professional that it feels like it hardly makes a difference. Getting passed on a straight when you’re driving the car with maxed top speed sucks.

[orchid temple]

That’s not the car being faster than you. That’s just the crappy rubber banding.

I really didn’t enjoy the rubber banding in this one. It’s so obvious.

[molten arrow]

Actually I don’t think there is rubber banding in this game . I thought there was at first in novice championship but they are just really slow. And after trying the other championships many times I am almost sure there is none at all. Cars are really consistent and behave the same no matter if you are first or last.

The car you choose matters a lot though . I used to take the one with good handling and got passed all the time .

[molten arrow]

What car are you using ?

If you take the one with top speed you will never get passed at max speed .

[hard nymph]

i used the balanced car for my last professional attempt. is the top speed car recommended for the last championship?

[orchid temple]

I used balanced for all. It’s fine.

[molten arrow]

Not sure if it’s recommended but if you want to make sure that they are not passing you on a straight line that’s the car to use .

Also you are on automatic right ?

[hard nymph]

yeah. is manual faster?

[molten arrow]

No automatic is best

[molten arrow]

If you want to come back from retirement …

From a speed runner . He pushes my strategy farther , by warping even sooner . There is no risk that way

[stray aspen]

Are you struggling on corners?

Tapping the hand brake (tapping!) gives you the ability to do almost 90 degree turns with minimal slowdown

[hard nymph]

Handbrake is Z, right? B is the regular brake?

[wheat pivot]

Between handbrake and the regular one corners aren't a huge problem, but the game feels real unfair in terms of the AI not having to race the same as the player. If I coast around a corner I lose probably minimum 10mph and all the other cars maintain their speed and improve their lead/ overtake me, but if I take the turns at their same speed I crash into the wall every time

I'm definitely not the best racer by a long stretch but going in to the 3rd circuit the game feels cheap and not worth the effort

https://tenor.com/view/allenxandria-theres-no-fun-to-be-had-here-gif-23231859

[orchid temple]

What place are you finishing?

[molten arrow]

After bill giving the game 0/10 someone said it is an abomination on their completion post lol. It is totally unreal to me .

[orchid temple]

0/10 and abomination are harsh. I think it's a decent racer, but doesn't really do enough to distinguish itself. The large levels are it's greatest strength, while also being it's greatest weakness. Couple that with a boring soundtrack and the lack of car variety, and I think you have a mediocre game overall. I think 3/5 is fair. The level design is ambitious and worth seeing, but I don't see a lot of other reasons to play this over other racing titles.

[stray aspen]

Weird. I'm almost done and have gone in first on every first attempt - think I have the one last race left.

I got used to drifting with OutRun 2006 (ironically) and the skills transferred over pretty quickly

[wheat pivot]

1st circuit - all 1st place
2nd - all 1st with one accidental 4th or 5th
3rd - 8th

[wheat pivot]

Beetle needs more rpg elements!

[orchid temple]

Lol. Not this. Weird you went from 1st to 8th.

[wheat pivot]

That’s what I mean about the game being unfair. I went into the last circuit with the same about of skill I had in the first two

[orchid temple]

Yeah, now it’s time to git gud, scrub. 😆

[wheat pivot]

Pass! Much easier to delete the game and forget it ever happened

Going back to the trpg thread where I’m wanted

[stray aspen]

Well this is the first winner in months I've actually felt like getting into so I'm gonna enjoy it DAMNIT

[orchid temple]

Your actually finishing the race at 8th or just deciding there if no hope after lap one or something?

[stray aspen]

I only wish it was longer, there's not much content to complete here and what's here is pretty repetitive

[orchid temple]

The bonus boxes aren’t even really fun.

[wheat pivot]

Closer to the latter. First race was sooo easy in the first two circuits, no matter how many times I tried on the 3rd I either started in 8th or had one mistake somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd lap and dropped all the way back down

[orchid temple]

Yeah, just play it through once. See where you end up. There is rubber banding that will help you.

[wheat pivot]

Eh. I’m good on beetle, don’t need the point that badly. Gonna spend my time on Crystalis and Ghost Trick which I’m actually enjoying

[orchid temple]

I’d be willing to bet you actually finish in the top 3 though.

[hard nymph]

I switched from playing this on the H to playing on the Odin 2. I don’t know how to transfer saves, but the game is short enough that it doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I ever wanted to play it on the H.. the Odin 2 is more comfortable, the controls are better, the screen is better, the performance is better. I should have went with the obvious device from the start instead of forcing it on the H for the novelty.

[stray aspen]

[hard nymph]

Aight, it’s done. I managed to secure a twelve point lead going into the final race, so I didn’t even have to bother with winning. I came P5 and still rolled credits.

playing on the Odin 2 is much better than the H. Along with being much more familiar with the tracks and finding some shortcuts, the professional wasn’t as bad as I thought a few days ago.

not my favorite N64 racing game (❤️ San Francisco Rush) but in the end, I still really enjoyed this and I understand the hype

[molten arrow]

Oh I didn’t know you could do that . I thought you always needed to be top 3

[steady field]

Finally made it to professional. We’ll see if I can win… im not very good at this

[stray aspen]

Thank you, Joe

Very cool

[reef galleon]

Well, I really liked this. Even though I never played this back in the day, somehow I got a very nice cozy nostalgic feeling - felt like I was back in my childhood room with an N64 controller in my hand, even though I was playing upscaled on a Steam Deck

The way the car handles felt nicely logical, and I really enjoyed the long tracks full of secrets and Adventure. I even liked the music that was definitely nothing special, but fit the vibe really well in my opinion

The Racing part was the most lacking in my opinion. It was very easy to win all the races, and the AI was doing strange stuff. I'm not sure if it was even rubberbanding or just simply accelerating (unrealistically) much one moment, and then coming to a halt next

So overall not too much challenge, but a very nice comfortable experience overall. Really happy I played this

[molten arrow]

Yeah I think you got it right : it’s not rubber banding but they are acting weirdly in some specific areas

[bleak vector]

It's definitely rubberbanding. They can go faster than the top speed of your car easily

[reef galleon]

They can and they did for me too, but it seemed unrelated to my performance. Most of the time I was able to drive alone in the first place with no AI cars following closely

[molten arrow]

Yeah like satirical said . It does not fit the definition of rubber banding in that it is not made to adjust to your performance . Ai does act weirdly but is consistent .

[orchid temple]

I think it does adjust to your performance, just not as much for when you are ahead. Every time I screwed up in a major way, I was able to get back in first with relative ease.

[molten arrow]

It’s just because you’re good at racing games . If you screw up a few times , you are not doomed like you are in other racers , because your opponents are not that good .

[orchid temple]

Maybe. I think they made them screw up on purpose though. It helps the exploration aspect they were going for.

[molten arrow]

Yeah they totally made them screw up on purpose .

[orchid temple]

So, I think there is rubber banding. Maybe not in the most traditional way, but they definitely want the other cars kind close to you. So they screw up when you do. They go a little faster at times. Still rubber banding.

[molten arrow]

Ok that’s the part where I disagree . I am pretty sure they don’t screw up when you do . They just screw up.

[pastel zinc]

I dunno, my experience has definitely been that every other car slams on their breaks as soon as I drop out of first

[molten arrow]

Yeah but that might just be to avoid accidents . They sure put the brake as soon as you or another car is close by

[orchid temple]

it might be rubber banding, which I think makes more sense.

[bleak vector]

The rubber banding is indeed very inconsistent. I once savestated near the end of a race just to see how it would play out. I took first place pretty late, but it was on the final stretch. Second place kept passing me. Then one time he just decided not to pass me. My finish times were basically identical

Then one other race, I won it by a few hundreths of a second at the finish line even though I was quite far ahead by the end stretch. He just came barreling down

[molten arrow]

That’s interesting !

[orchid temple]

My experience was much more like @bleak vector

[molten arrow]

I also made similar tests and also noticed that they never react exactly the same .

What is also interesting to note is that overall , they will always do similar times though, no matter what is your personal rank, which points toward something that is not exactly rubber banding .

I also watch more and more videos , and read about the games , and it points in that direction .

I’ll try to have it figured out before the end of the month

[viral mirage]

I left the game running for a half hour early on in a race. Was still able to get first with my first lap being 38 mins long. If that isn't rubber banding. What is it?

[bleak vector]

Did you really?

[stray aspen]

No Yes

[stiff wadi]

I feel like that inconsistency might be contributing to the mixed opinions on difficulty. It's like there is some rng on cpu skill, so sometimes they are ez and sometimes they are killer. Wonder if that's from those weird little quirks during the race adding up over time.

[stray aspen]

I think it's more the AI is consistent but we just have better players than others

[forest delta]

Aka skill issue

[molten arrow]

Talking about skills you don’t need quite as much with the alien beetle . Drives like a charm . Now let’s try to unlock that perfect beetle .

Managed to get third in the first race of bonus championship . I got a sense of speed in that race that I never had in the previous championships

[main geode]

Is there a trick to running this on Android? I've been randomly switching cores but it seems like it consistently crashes the actual retroarch app, not the core. First time I've had this happen on the OdinLite...

[orchid temple]

Welcome to the odd world of N64 emulation.

[main geode]

fair enough 🙂

retroarch64 with mupen64plus-next seems to be doing better. At least I finished a race..

ha, shouldn't have typed that. it crashed right after.

[orchid temple]

I think that's the one I used on my steam deck... Tried parallel first, and it couldn't handle it.

[molten arrow]

I quitted trying to make 64 work on retroarch . Stand-alone m64 never fails me !

[main geode]

m64 does seem to be working. I'm pretty sure I bought that last time I was annoyed at retroarch.

[marble slate]

Finally finishing the last few races of Pro, this game is meh at best...

The amount of invisible obstacles I've clipped on sharp turns and such, I'm confused how people thought the controls were "tight" in this game at any point...

[molten arrow]

Invisible obstacles ??? Never happened to me

[hard nymph]

yeah i never had issues with invisible objects. any time i hit something it was definitely my fault lol

[stray aspen]

I just wish there was better music and more courses. Genuinely loved the driving

[spark bough]

tfw you accidentally get jumped out of the level geometry and have to start over on these massive long-ass tracks

[orchid temple]

L button will reset your car on the track, near where you were.

[spark bough]

tfw I already gave up rip

[orchid temple]

https://tenor.com/view/to-save-the-future-save-the-world-saviour-hero-for-the-future-generation-gif-16578681

[spark bough]

Thankfully I was only on Coventry Cove, and thank you for this tip

[spark bough]

aaand eating shit on Mount Mayhem of the novice circuit

[spark bough]

all right, novice down

[reef galleon]

I was using this only not when going off track, but also if I found myself facing in the wrong direction or coming to a full stop for some reason. It resets to you going in the right direction at a slow speed, so it's probably quicker than accelerating from a standstill

[reef galleon]

Maybe I haven't played enough N64 recently and have some rose coloured glasses, but I was really enjoying the music too. It's definitely not very good or interesting, but it just fit the vibe of the game really well in my opinion

[ornate quiver]

I was not prepared for how long the races were gonna be here lol

Just finished the first race

[stray aspen]

Might give this one a second run through, can't find anything else I really want to play right now

[molten arrow]

Did you already beat bonus championship ?

[stray aspen]

Yep

[wheat pivot]

https://tenor.com/view/oh-no-baby-what-is-you-doing-gif-19439946

[primal flare]

This is a strange game

[ornate quiver]

If you hit another car hard enough they just explode

[molten arrow]

Yeah that’s the best feeling one can have !

[molten arrow]

Nice job ! I am also trying. Just made it to metro but it looks like I will have to be first in the last two. Let’s get that police beetle !

Will you try getting all the bonuses and the flower boxes ?

[stray aspen]

probably not

[molten arrow]

I think I’ll try getting a bunch to see how far I can go . With the police beetle it should be fun .

[ornate quiver]

I beat the game, went outside to go grab some groceries and first car I see is a beetle

Haunting me (I actually liked the game a lot lol)

[stray aspen]

Enjoying a game

[wheat pivot]

you know what? I'll allow it, good for you

[zealous marten]

Really didn't care for this one. Wonky physics, doing the same 3 races 3 times in a row sucks, especially when they're 9 minutes a track. Music forgettable. There was just nothing for me here.

[mellow quail]

i like this game but i have never actually "completed" it before and yeah completion kinda feels rough here

[wheat pivot]

I'm agreeing with you so hard right now

[spark bough]

Threads of Fate died for this game

also while I'm dealing with this one, are there any N64 emulators that have runahead?

I imagine the analog stick complicating the inputs could make that very difficult

[lament cove]

Has ToF ever gotten that close before?

[mellow quail]

I think yeah? It's been pretty close a few times

[orchid temple]

I think it’s always the bridesmaid.

[spark bough]

All right, going in to the fourth race of the advanced circuit. Got screwed out of first place in Inferno Isle at the last moment. Currently have 28 points, followed by Sea Spray at 22 and Bronze at 21.

Those are the only two that could beat me, and only if I place, like, abominably

let's see if I can beat this last race at not, like, 8th place

[spark bough]

came in 7th in the race, 2nd in the circuit, did not advance, fuck my life

this game ain't worth it

Not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong. But the lighting is pretty dark even turning my RP3+ all the way up to max brightness, and that really doesn't help me not hit walls in dark tunnels

[ornate quiver]

Honestly I just picked the most well balanced car (red then purple then pink) each circuit and raced as cleanly as possible and came first every race. The dark bits are atrocious though, I couldn't see shit.

[bleak vector]

That's weird. It's definitely not a dark game. You should try a different graphics plugin maybe

But also better to just not bother playing

[spark bough]

I'm using Glide. What are other people using?

Glide is probably not the best for this game tbh, there's definitely white lines in level geometry and shit like that

[fading basin]

This is a lesson for me to never nominate a racing game again

[bleak vector]

I used Gliden because it's what I usually use for widescreen. Although this game seems to be unable to be widescreen for some reason. No idea why

[reef galleon]

I managed to get it to run widescreen once, then went to tinker with some other setting and never got widescreen working again, regardless of whatever I tried

[molten arrow]

Well there are quite a few of us who are appreciating it . Haters all always gonna hate , but let’s not let them ruin our fun . I will definitely keep nominating racing games .

[stiff wadi]

You could try the image adjustment shader as well. It's got a gamma parameter that I found helped a lot with that.

[ornate quiver]

Do people not enjoy racing games here? I think if you're coming from mario kart or the likes it takes a while to learn to slow down on corners and to avoid drifting, but Forza and stuff is pretty popular

[stiff wadi]

Forza and GT2 with the nice driving lines really taught me a lot about how to handle corners. Useful even irl too!

[ornate quiver]

Yeah Forza taught me a lot about cornering and even how to use gears efficiently (we pretty much all drive manual in Ireland)

[stiff wadi]

The big counter-intuitive lesson is that you don't want to be using the brakes while you're in the corner, you want to be accelerating. So brake before the corner, then accelerate through it. The acceleration is what really changes your direction, not braking.

[molten arrow]

No automatic mode in forza?

[ornate quiver]

There is! There's 3 options, automatic, manual, and manual with clutch (you have to hold a button while you change gears)

[stiff wadi]

I drove a manual Fit for a few years, loved it. But feels like too much hassle for day-to-day driving, unless you've got something that can really take advantage of the power gains.

gdi I miss that car 😭

[fading basin]

I was referring to the fact that cars in this game handle fine, and some people come and say they handle like shit, and then you have games like choro, in which you press turn for 2 seconds and your cars starts spinning, and people say they handle fine and "git gud". Like I understand you may not like this game, it's totally fine, and there is certainly a lot of issues to talk about, and people do, but for me how car feels is not opinion based, it either feels good, or it feels bad. I feel like I see one colour, and people see completely different color. And if that's the case, nominating racing games is pointless, since we can't even agree on the most basic thing, that is whether the cars feel like brick on ice or not.

And we talk about arcade racer, not a simulation racer, in which there is some depth to how cars control and there is more to analyse there

[bleak vector]

Weird to think about this game having bad controls. The cars all understeer too much, but then they stick to the tracks like glue just by letting off the throttle. There was one quirk with microadjustments were too sensitive and always made me miss the bonus box I was aiming for, and ramps could royally mess you up, but those are mostly minor

[molten arrow]

Yeah saying that the cars don’t handle good in this game is pure non-sense .

But I don’t think it should prevent us from nominating more racing games .

There are indeed some weird comments in this thread but there is also great discussion

[stray aspen]

It's literally a skill issue

I plowed through and got 1st every race on the first try and it wasn't even difficult, I think I maybe used like 3 save states and I do not have years and years of racing game experience - just a couple of games

Would a live class help? I feel like I could show people how to take corners over Discord or something

[lyric loom]

What a polarizing game. I’m in the “it’s easy” camp. And I didn’t finish Speed Punks.

[stray aspen]

I didn't play speed punks lol

[orchid temple]

Yeah, I don't understand people thinking the handling is bad in this game. The physics are wierd, like sticking to the track vs flying out of control on jumps sometimes, but when you're on the ground, the cars handle just fine... even way too good really. Letting off the gas is all that's needed for like 90% of the corners, and for those that it isn't enough, a tap or two of the regular brake is usually sufficient to fly through with easy. It's really not a difficult game at all. I guess I'm better at racing games than I thought, but this one still doesn't seem all that difficult by any means. I don't consider this one like a masterpiece or anything. It's fun for what it is.

[stiff wadi]

Anyone playing PAL vs NTSC? Wonder if there's a difference from the framerate

[main geode]

I'm not sure I would call the handling bad, but the physics feels inconsistent. If you do just stay on the road and don't touch anything it works, but I want to drive through the castle...

So, self inflicted. 🙂

[ornate quiver]

Yeah I played it as boring as possible, picked the most well balanced cars, slowed down before turns, stayed on the main track, didn't veer off track for bonus boxes or boosters and found it super easy, I haven't gotten around to the bonus stuff yet though

actually what do the bonus points even do

[molten arrow]

Unlock bonus stuff when you get 100 points in a given track .

There are also three flower boxes per track . Each unlocks a new cheat

[ornate quiver]

oh neat lol, probably not gonna do that but it's cool that it's there

[spark bough]

This I'll have to bear in mind

[molten arrow]

How would you rank the tracks ? Me :

1. Snow
2. Desert
3. Night
4. City
5. Farm
6. Volcano

[pastel zinc]

Okay, new challenge mode. I sat at the start for 30 seconds before I started driving. Took first. Going to sit for a minute next time

[orchid temple]

https://tenor.com/view/whoevers-willing-to-do-that-is-the-real-hero-gabriel-iglesias-gabe-iglesias-mr-iglesias-youre-the-real-hero-gif-17674410

[molten arrow]

On novice mode ?

[spark bough]

Wait, how many tracks do the higher circuits actually add?

[molten arrow]

Each new circuit comes with a new track .

[wild plume]

I hate volcano

[spark bough]

||oh so there's a fourth circuit||

[forest delta]

And a fifth, and a sixth. And a seventh

[molten arrow]

Yes there is a fourth. But don’t listen to volfonibros lol.

[pastel zinc]

The last difficulty

Professional! That's what it's called

[orchid temple]

@pastel zinc curious to see the results of that test. I think it’s doable.

[pastel zinc]

Yeah, the screenshots above were from waiting a minute. I'm going to try two next. The game gives you a timer showing how far you are from 8th. The time decreases really quickly when you finally start driving, probably the computer letting you catch up

Once I caught up, it took about two minutes to catch up to first. As long as you leave enough time to go from first to eighth when you catch up with the pack, I think you can wait as long as you want (as long as first hasn't passed the finish line). Maybe up to four or five minutes

[orchid temple]

Yeah, that’s what I thought. It definitely has rubber banding, and some of the weirdest I’ve seen, honestly.

[pastel zinc]

Yeah. I'm honestly having a pretty good time now that I'm trying to push the rubber banding to its limits 😅

[orchid temple]

The difficulty was never a challenge. This does sound kind of fun.

https://tenor.com/view/ryan-george-pitch-meeting-gif-18092666

The only races I remember not getting first in is the volcano, and that because hitting those final jumps at speed and not hitting lava is tough. Easily the hardest thing for me in the game.

[bleak vector]

Go for the ultimate test with that rubber banding

https://tenor.com/view/rose-titanic-84-years-gif-5163701

[molten arrow]

Damn I can’t believe you achieved that . I had to retry many times just to get third place. Congrats

[molten arrow]

But how can you set a new record when you started 1 minute late ? Next time please show everyone’s time . I am very curious .

[pastel zinc]

I was third in the records, I think

I also blew up twice

[stray aspen]

Some players: "man this game is impossibly hard"
Whitty: "I gave my opponents a huge head start and still won!"

[pastel zinc]

I'm just trying to figure out what's going on with the rubber banding stuff. It's very strange

And folks are using the good cars as they unlock, right?

[orchid temple]

I did. But I’m in the ‘this game is stupid easy’ camp.

[wild plume]

Man this game stinks

[molten arrow]

I’m starting to think that something is up, like we are not all playing the same game . Maybe something with the version of the game or emulation settings I don’t know .

[orchid temple]

Nah, people just have wildly different opinions and skill levels.

[molten arrow]

Yeah probably . The difference is just brutal in this case lol.

[stiff wadi]

You playing the PAL version by chance?

[molten arrow]

Ntsc here . You?

I just got 100 bonus boxes in coventy cove . Just one flower box though . The other two are well hidden . Maybe I have to do some crazy jump to reach them .

[stiff wadi]

Yeah also ntsc (afaik).

Idk, some of yall are saying just clean racing is enough to sleep on the whole game, but I'm definitely finding in some of these races that keeps me on 7-8. I'm no race pro, but I'm decent enough at sim racers, so it seems like there is something more going on. Having trouble on the pro circuit with the balanced car from the top set.

[orchid temple]

I almost think struggling for the first lap might actually help you more. The other cars slow down to let you catch up.

[stray aspen]

Idk brother, it was super easy with the balanced car

People gotta drift better

[mellow quail]

this runs nicely on 353m so far

[stray aspen]

I may have time today to show how to win if someone wants, just ping me

otherwise nbd 🙂

[marble slate]

The biggest tip I found was immediately respawn when the race starts to avoid the nonsense timing of burning your tires and ending up 5 seconds behind 7th place

[stray aspen]

Just don't rev your engine too early

I think this is the same as mariokart

@orchid temple are these not universally known things?

[orchid temple]

Apparently not…

I can’t think of a racing game that doesn’t punish for hitting the gas too early…

[stray aspen]

Interesting

[orchid temple]

I’m sure there must be some though… R.C. pro-am.

Maybe.

F-zero?

There’s definitely a lot more that reward you for good timing

But even so, a five second gap at the start of the race is hardly a big deal in this game. 😆

[steady field]

1st place on first 3 tracks of hardest setting done. No way I’d be able to beat this game without save states

I’m playing on an iPad with screen controls

[stray aspen]

rough

[mellow quail]

Yeah my biggest issue with this game is just that the races are so long lol. I think it controls pretty well for it's era honestly

[orchid temple]

Yeah, its biggest strength is also its biggest weakness.

https://tenor.com/view/two-way-sword-will-ferrell-anchorman-gif-10865503

[steady field]

Done!

[spark bough]

All right, I found the "image adjustment" shader, but I'm not sure how to use it to correct gamma

There's also an actual "gamma correction cubic" shader I found but I'm not sure how to configure that either

[stray aspen]

[spark bough]

The image is weirdly dark on my RP3+ is my problem. As in it can be hard to see where I'm going in some of the dark tunnels, which is a huge issue

(yes, I have the device brightness maxed)

[stray aspen]

Oh thats just N64

Yeah not sure

[spark bough]

Right. So I need a way to gamma correct those dark areas

[orchid temple]

Just memorize it.

[molten arrow]

Yeah good thing that there are not too many of those dark areas .

[ornate quiver]

Yeah the dark areas are the worst part of the game, but with relying on the map I didn't find them too awful

[stiff wadi]

After applying the image correction shader, you then need to adjust the "shader parameters". "Monitor Gamma" seemed to do the trick - on RP2S I bumped it from 2.2 up to 2.5. There you can also adjust "Zoom Factor" to get rid of the black borders around the edges if you have any, I went up to 1.15.

[spark bough]

Big help, thank you.

[stiff wadi]

Make sure to save your shader presets afterwards too. I thought game overrides would do it, but they sure do not, so I got to set those settings a few times lol

[mellow quail]

do you get anything for getting 100 points on a level? closest ive come is high 80s

[orchid temple]

Yes. you can get new cars and such. I think getting 100 on the first level unlocks the castle.

[mellow quail]

Oh damn

[molten arrow]

In multiplayer mode right ?

I did 100 in the first race and unlocked something but I don’t have access to it because playing on handheld means multiplayer is disabled

[orchid temple]

I’m not sure. I didn’t do it. I just read about it somewhere.

[forest delta]

yeah it's multiplayer levels

I found out yesterday about another arcade racer I didn't know for the N64 and instantly forgot the name, any of you would know ? Cars look kind of like kid toy car, game was apparently pretty rare because it was only in one chain of american stores

[mellow quail]

re-volt maybe?

that was multiplatform tho

theres also Penny Racers which is a Choro Q game (maybe the first to get localized?)

i think there was an n64 micro machines game too

[molten arrow]

So many good racing games for 64

[forest delta]

it's not those

Found it finally

Stunt Racer 64

[mellow quail]

ohhh yeah. havent played that one but i saw thabeast do it in his n64 challenge... looked not terrible lol

[orchid temple]

not terrible.
Strong endorsement. 😂

[stray aspen]

He didnt like it, a lot of his subscribers do

Was a funny interaction

[orchid temple]

I haven't played many N64 racers, but none of them look that great to me, honestly. The ones that do are usually on other systems. DKR is a standout, imo. Beetle was entertaining and is the second best exclusive I've played, but that is a low bar.

I do need to try the world championship racing or whatever it is still.

[mellow quail]

i've said it a lot but f-zero x is really great

the high framerate and crazy sense of speed just make it feel a lot less dated than most n64 racers

even tho it looks pretty bad in stills lol

the cars are like starfox levels of low poly but the payoff is they can put 30 of them on screen at once at 60 fps

[mellow quail]

yeah that's happened a few times. i remember him not really liking beetle adventure racing too

[stray aspen]

yeah exactly

[molten arrow]

Not a fan of the f-zero series but f-zero x is indeed pretty good .

[molten arrow]

Its hard to get motivated to do 100 % bonus boxes, since the reward is just battle maps that I can’t even see !

Might switch to outrun .

[pastel zinc]

Okay, so I guess you get disqualified if you get more than a minute behind last place

[molten arrow]

Yes. That’s what makes it hard to get 100 % bonuses .

[viral raven]

How do I roll credits in this game? I played through the novice, advanced, and professional championships but I think they were all the same courses and I don’t see anything else to do

[orchid temple]

You should have gotten one additional track for each championship. After you finish all five tracks in the pro championship in podium position (I think? Maybe first is required) you get credits.

[steady field]

Did it actually have credits or just a picture of the car with a bunch or “winner” signs?

[orchid temple]

Pretty sure there are actual credits.

#1102540186790928415 message

[spark bough]

all right

any last-minute pointers? or optimizations to make to minimize latency for N64 emulation?

[lyric loom]

it felt fine playing on steam deck

[spark bough]

fair enough. I already did the thing with using the image correction shader to turn up gamma so I don't go blind in the tunnels

[spark bough]

Is there a particular car I should be using? I've been using the handling-optimized car

(Yes, I know a new tier of cars unlocks after beating the novice circuit, and have been using the better handling-spec car, not the old one)

[mellow quail]

I'm not finished yet but I've been using the speed ones and it's mostly been fine. Getting a little hairier as I climb levels tho and get faster cars

[orchid temple]

Don't use Parallel. It struggles bad with the game.

[orchid temple]

Car won't matter. The game has serious rubber banding. You can win with any car easily.

[spark bough]

...I'm now running into an issue where Mount Mayhem is just a white screen

[orchid temple]

What core/emulator/device are you using?

[spark bough]

let me double-check

@orchid temple It was happening on my PC, in the Mupen64 Plus Next RA core, with GlideN64 as my driver

...I switch to my RP3+ and Mount Mayhem displays properly. go figure

[orchid temple]

could be gliden64.

[spark bough]

Doesn't seem to be that. The RP3+ is also running GlideN64

[lyric loom]

maybe you have some global settings that are interfering with mupen on pc? I've accidentally turned on runahead globally and it messed with a bunch of cores, especially dreamcast.

[spark bough]

I might. It wasn't causing the same problem in Coventry Cove, though.

I don't know if there's something graphically different in Mount Mayhem

[steady field]

Oh good. My pc did the same thing and never heard anyone else comment. Ran it on an iPad and did it with screen controls and I didn’t have the white screen

I figured it had something to do with the snow on that level

[spark bough]

Is your PC also Windows?

I don't think it's an x86 thing, because people apparently aren't having this issue on the Steam Deck

[steady field]

Old 2010 Mac book air. But running on an intel…. Maybe same chip?

[spark bough]

Nah, I'm on an i5-10400, which is nowhere near that old

[steady field]

I have Linux Nobara setup on it as the OS

If you figure out what did I’d love to know.

[spark bough]

no clue tbh

[viral raven]

So I just "beat" the pro circuit again (1st place in every race), but it didn't even go to the sandy map, just ended after the jungle one. Not sure what I've done wrong to not unlock the courses necessary to beat the game, but I've decided I don't care enough about the streak to figure it out.

[spark bough]

Have you done at least one of Crystalis or Ghost Trick this month?

Ghost Trick is easily the best game this month, but you might be able to speedrun Crystalis if you use a guide and don't have anything going on between now and when this month closes

[molten arrow]

That’s so weird. What happens after you beat the first three courses , it just goes to the title screen?

[viral raven]

It goes to the "You Win" screen with my car on the podium, then goes to the title screen

[viral raven]

No, I haven't, and I don't have time or desire to play either of those games in a day. Its no big deal though, I figured it would happen this month since I didn't get started until a couple days ago

[molten arrow]

This is so weird . It’s as if the game thinks you are playing beginner’s cup

[lament cove]

Do I have time to finish the one tomorrow

Have not started

[spark bough]

...just placed 7th in Coventry Cove in the professional circuit

I do not know what I did wrong

[sinful totem]

My best guess is that you finished slower than 6 other racers

[spark bough]

observation: mapping the stick axis outputs to my D-pad has improved my life when playing this on the RP3+

[orchid temple]

Use a grip. It will change your life.

I printed this one myself. Works great. https://beefygrip.com/product/beefygrip-rp3/

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5746813

[spark bough]

For what it's worth, I'm using a BeefyGrip. It's just that the D-pad is still in a more comfortable position, and it isn't giving me trouble with finer adjustments

[spark bough]

OK, do I have to complete ||the Bonus circuit, or just the Professional circuit||

[steady field]

I think just professional. I didn’t do any bonus tracks

[spark bough]

OK, because I'm on Sunset Sands right now. I have a save state with a 1st-place clear on the first three tracks, so if I can make at least 3rd on both the fourth and fifth tracks, hopefully that'll be enough. that'll be hard enough tho; I'm fighting tooth and nail to try to keep 7th in Sunset Sands so far

Any tips? Admittedly I may be driving a weak vehicle, because I picked the one with the highest handling

[steady field]

I save scummed. Run a good portion of lap save state and keep returning there. I wasn’t very good at this game and likely got to the end by sheer persistence and repetition

[spark bough]

I've been doing the same thing tbh

[spark bough]

How much did you have to fight to get past 7th in Sunset Sands? Because holy moly the car in 8th keeps fighting me for it

[steady field]

I’ll have to retry. I beat that one pretty early in the month. If I remember right on the game. Whichever car is right in front and behind seem to really fight hard no matter what. I think I retried from the start of I couldn’t get at least a couple cars up within a lap

[spark bough]

It feels almost like there's some scripting going on, where there are points where the game either speeds up the car behind you or slows down the one in front of you (or maybe speeds you up a bit; it feels like that at times) to create a contest for a change of position

It has been mentioned this game has a shitload of rubber-banding

[fading basin]

I know myself and Liquid didn't have any issues with any race. Whitty did challanges, waiting a minute before moving and then still won the race easily. I really don't know what tips to give due to that, I always picked the car with the best handling.

[spark bough]

All right, 1st place in Sunset Sands

now I'm pretty sure I do just have to get 3rd in this one

Hmm, yep. Second place racer has 27 points

All right, second place as of the start of the second lap

I can do this

aaand first place right off the first exit

1st place as of beginning of third lap. here we go

lol just got interrupted by that thing Zu was just complaining about. political ad, in the form of a local candidate actually going door-to-door

I've met him and he's already got my vote in the primary so it didn't take me long to shoo him off. anyway

done. one more point towards

your regular reminder that #SaveStatesSaveLives

or at least, #SaveStatesSaveStreaks

[noble dune]

@spark bough is on a 6 month completion streak!

[spark bough]

I can't say I'm a fan of this game but I can say I was pushed out of my comfort zone.

https://tenor.com/view/its-something-something-here-you-go-it's-something-its-something-funny-gif-1669161523447633417

[mellow quail]

oh yeah i should try to finish this lol. got a few more races left of the 3rd championship, that's the last one before credits right?

[spark bough]

yep

If you're not great at the game it'll take you a few hours, but you should be able to squeak through if you've got a clear stretch between now and close and you abuse save states

[stiff wadi]

Man screw this game lol. Just did three full laps on Sunset Sands, balanced car, with (not perfect but) pretty clean driving, and I never once left 8th place.

I'm going back to playing SotN

[molten arrow]

#1257166525442555934 message

With that shortcut it’s a guaranteed first place .

[mellow quail]

yeah i dont think im finishing this lol. not bad but i dont really wanna push myself to play 10 minute races for the 3rd time just to finish it

[molten arrow]

The last race worths it imo