This game is stupidly easy

[II Wingless II]

I did 1 practice race and then did the tournament and came in 1st place by a longslide on every single track. Then I tried the most difficult circuit (Invitational Podracing Circuit) and came in 1st in my first two races easily and then uninstalled and refunded.

Is this game supposed to be challenging? I got the point where the only time I saw other racers is when I overlapped them...

Environments are dry and unchallenging and the basic gameplay loop is incredibly repetitive and simple.

[Resident Asswhole]

This game released on the N64 in 1999. Half the modern racing formula did not exist at the time and there were no professional gamers. The game had to fit on a 32 Megabit (not Megabyte) cartridge. Even for its time, the game got mediocre reviews and was known for leaning heavily on the Starwars franchise to make sales.

I know I enjoy the game, more for the nostalgia of playing it then the game itself. When I play it, I think back to a happy time in my life... before friends and family were lost, and the world seemed like a better place overall.

So, yeah. You are right, the game did not age well. But I have a feeling most of the players who seek out this game are searching for more then just the game itself.

[II Wingless II]

Originally posted by Resident ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

This game released on the N64 in 1999. Half the modern racing formula did not exist at the time and there were no professional gamers. The game had to fit on a 32 Megabit (not Megabyte) cartridge. Even for its time, the game got mediocre reviews and was known for leaning heavily on the Starwars franchise to make sales.

I know I enjoy the game, more for the nostalgia of playing it then the game itself. When I play it, I think back to a happy time in my life... before friends and family were lost, and the world seemed like a better place overall.

So, yeah. You are right, the game did not age well. But I have a feeling most of the players who seek out this game are searching for more then just the game itself.

I've gone back and played many "nostalgic" games over the years, and there's a very small handful that have held up to time due to being genuinely good games. The rest of them have aged so poorly, or were never good in the first place, that it's just a joke to pretend they're still remotely enjoyable to play or that they were EVER good. People truly are blinded by nostalgia to a delusional level.

I played this game as a child too, and yet the nostalgia was not enough to override the objective fact that this game is just not very fun to play.

I am a bit tired of this nostalgia nonsense, it's preventing people from seeing what's right in front of them and creating new memories.

[Teratus]

I still find this game a good bit of fun, especially this version of it.

I had a blast playing this with my friends back in the day too but the main issue with the old N64 version is how dated the game's performance and visuals are.

Even with an expansion pack the N64 version has some pretty poor draw distance and resolution which makes playing the game quite difficult after a while, can't quite see what's coming up as terrain and textures tend to mesh together while you're blasting around the tracks.

PC version doesn't have that problem since it runs at much higher resolution than the 64 was capable of, and higher framerate and has significantly better draw distance.
That's one reason why it feels so much easier to play this on PC.
And a big reason why playing the original game on a 64 today can be quite offputting for some people.

That doesn't take away the fun though, not for me anyway.

A lot of retro games, most of all early 3D retro games suffer similar issues for similar reasons.
It's one of the main reasons emulating and recompiling games from the 64, PS1 era is so popular these days.
It's not just about Nostalgia, but actively and greatly improving the quality of those games for a severely better experience.

There are very few old games I find hard to enjoy today, most of the games I loved as a kid I still love and enjoy today, even on their original hardware.

That's not to say they don't have their flaws though, ofc old games are not perfect and never were.. and that's the biggest problem nostalgia arguments have.. they look back at old games and compare them and judge them by everything new instead of judging them for what they are and were when they came out.
End of the day if it were not for these older games you wouldn't have all these newer games today in the first place.

And that same thing applies to all the new games of today as well.. they're also flawed in their own ways, sometimes even more so than older games.
New doesn't always mean better.. that's one of the universal truths as far as I am concerned, and there are plenty of horribly bad newer games out there that prove that.

[CalicoJack]

Playing the pc version with more than 24 fps ruins the driving physics and racer speeds.
The game is not that hard in the first few races but i played the correctly running Dreamcast version instead and it was so much easier for the NPCs to race and win against me because i couldnt abuse the damaged physics and game mechanics anymore.
It played as it was intended and the farther i got in the Championship, the harder it became to win races!
Suddenly, buying and managing podracer parts (and credits managing) became important if you wanted to stand a chance in the Championship mode!

The Dreamcast is the superior version to play because everything works as intended from the get-go, the physics work and even the music works which is also often botched nowadays in the PC version.
It runs super smooth btw.
With an emulator you can also up the resolution to make it look more pleasing.
And controller support is just like out of the box too!

________
It's a new lap record!
-----------‐--

[II Wingless II]

Originally posted by CalicoJack:

Playing the pc version with more than 24 fps (or maybe 30fps) ruins the driving physics and racer speeds.
The game is not that hard in the first few races but i played the correctly running Dreamcast version instead and it was so much easier for the NPCs to race and win against me because i couldnt abuse the damaged physics and game mechanics anymore.
It played as it was intended and the farther i got in the Championship, the harder it became to win races!
Suddenly, buying and managing podracer parts (and credits managing) became important if you wanted to stand a chance in the Championship mode!

The Dreamcast is the superior version to play because everything works as intended from the get-go, the physics work and even the music works which is also often botched nowadays in the PC version.
It runs super smooth btw.
With an emulator you can also up the resolution to make it look more pleasing.
And controller support is just like out of the box too!

________
It's a new lap record!
-----------‐--

I do have a Dreamcast emulator setup, but what exactly is different about frame rates effecting collision damage and mechanics in the OG version vs PC?

[Teratus]

Originally posted by Tom Pusslicker:

I do have a Dreamcast emulator setup, but what exactly is different about frame rates effecting collision damage and mechanics in the OG version vs PC?

This is a common issue with mostly old games and how they're coded, not sure on the specifics of it but playing some games at higher framerates than intended can cause bugs and performance issues.

For example, playing Baldur's gate or Summoner with higher than 30 FPS increases the actual game speed, quite amusing in all honesty but if you run the games at like 120 fps the whole game is like in super speed mode lol.

Lego Jurassic World also has a problem with this as well, if the game runs at too high FPS some of the games mechanics don't work properly.

As for E1Racer, my guess is that it has a similar issue to BG1 and Summoner, if the FPS is too high the game runs too fast and things start getting screwy with the terrain or possibly with how the damage mechanic is calculated..
That's my best guess.

[CalicoJack]

What do you mean with OG version vs PC?
I´m talking about Dreamcast vs PC version. CD-Rom PC version or Steam PC version, or GOG PC version, it doesnt matter. With todays OS and hardware most people will have the problems i listed. Of course there are some attempts to fix the game but afaik thats not as easy (and not guaranteed to work anyways) as just playing the Dreamcast version, thus my recommendation.

Dreamcast version with emulator is the easiest and best looking (on par with PC version) way to play the game as it was meant without all those glitches and bugs the PC version suffers from due to incompatibility with todays modern OS and hardware.

[CalicoJack]

Originally posted by Teratus:

As for E1Racer, my guess is that it has a similar issue to BG1 and Summoner, if the FPS is too high the game runs too fast and things start getting screwy with the terrain or possibly with how the damage mechanic is calculated..
That's my best guess.

Yes.
And even when i managed to use a modern API (d3d9 or d3d11 or vulkan) with Ep1racer on PC so i could limit the framerate to 24fps, i still had the problem of figuring out how to enable and configure a gamepad.
AAAND the music was still buggy and not working properly.
AAAAAAND the gameplay was still not as smooth like simply playing the Dreamcast version, either on my Dreamcast or with an emulator.

[Teratus]

Originally posted by CalicoJack:

Yes.
And even when i managed to use a modern API (d3d9 or d3d11 or vulkan) with Ep1racer on PC so i could limit the framerate to 24fps (or 30 fps), i still had the problem of figuring out how to enable and configure a gamepad.
AAAND the music was still buggy and not working properly.
AAAAAAND the gameplay was still not as smooth like simply playing the Dreamcast version, either on my Dreamcast or with an emulator.

Only thing I had to do was download a dll file to make the game run since it would crash on startup for me.

Oh and set a default gamepad option in the controller options so my PS5 controller would work.
That's it, game's run perfectly fine since that, with exception to 1 random crash which isn't a big deal.

[CalicoJack]

Yeah, my pc version runs too.
Perfectly fine is something else though.


Anyways. I gave my advice.

[Unseen]

Oh yea this game seems stupidly easy at first, with all the upgrades and maxing out..

Then you get to the furthest circuit at the bottom, with that damn level that you can fall through the ground on a narrow platform and have to start the whole race over.

I got so fed up with that on n64 I figured out debug and maxed out to 2000mph, lol so fast it don't matter how many times you mess up.

[YouPay-chan]

believe it or not, some guys were working on re-making this game with new graphics engine a few years back using the Unreal engine 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfgC89vX0hA

[Teratus]

Originally posted by YouPay-chan:

believe it or not, some guys were working on re-making this game with new graphics engine a few years back using the Unreal engine 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfgC89vX0hA

Never knew about that, that's pretty awesome ^^
Would love a real remake or a new release of a Racer title, it's a shame this was just a one off considering how cool the podracer concept was.

Was such a big feature of the first movie, they could have done way more with it.

[Q.bic]

Yes, the game becomes easy once you memorize the tracks and become accustomed to the controls. Here's how I increased the challenge for myself.

1. Place first in every race without upgrades at all. Amateur circuit races can all easily be completed without upgrades as the racers are slower than you by default. In the semi-pro circuit, the racers are on par with your speed. Galactic circuit racers are faster than your non-upgraded vehicles by default and will overtake you while you are not boosting. I usually do this with Anakin, but you could even do this challenge with Elan Mak for additional difficulty.

2. Lore accurate Boonta Eve Classic. As Anakin Skywalker, enter the Boonta Eve Classic race, then give the AI a 36 second head start. This is how long Anakin was stalled in the movie. Winning is possible, but very difficult. It practically demands perfection.

3. Beat your own fastest lap/3 lap times. Not as glamorous as racing against better AI or other humans, but I've personally found much enjoyment in beating my own personal best times on certain tracks. I take great pleasure in mastering the catwalk shortcut in Abyss, taking that initial hairpin turn as quickly as I dare to shave of one or two more seconds from my best time.

[R2-D2]

I played the game on N64 and it wasn't *easy*. It sounds like a frame rate issue.

In the original San Andreas not locking the frame rate makes it too easy to drive, but hilariously makes the times wrong too so you can't win things like swimming races.